I'll Be Coming Home, Wait For Me
by Angelina Johnson
Summary: Spoilers through 4x15 (Girls (and Boys) on Film). Jake is the one Marley has always wanted, right? Then why is she imagining herself making out with Ryder while her boyfriend is serenading her? Ryley.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or any songs or other trademarked/copyrighted things that I may mention in this story. I am obsessed with Ryder and Marley. If you don't believe me, you should see my Tumblr. I warn you in advance that I haven't been the most reliable about finishing stories in the past, but I do have an 11 chapter outline for this story, so that's at least promising.**

Chapter 1

After hours of tossing and turning, Marley Rose finally gave up on sleep. She may be exhausted from the previous night's restlessness, but at least she hadn't fallen asleep long enough to slip into the nightmare that had been haunting her since Valentine's Day.

Not sleeping long enough to relive the nightmare didn't stop her from remembering it – and quite vividly, at that. Night after night, she had closed her eyes and pictured the inevitable confrontation between the two most important guys in her life, Ryder Lynn and Jake Puckerman. She hadn't been able to shake the idea that there would be some kind of fight or showdown between the two; her slumbers had been haunted by flashes of one punching the other.

When Ryder had kissed her on Valentine's Day, her first thought had been that she didn't want to ruin the friendship between the two boys, but now she had a feeling it was too late. Unable to deal with her own feelings anymore, she had come clean to Jake. Although there hadn't been any sort of showdown between the two, she had seen the glares her boyfriend had given her best friend during the Glee club's performance of 'Footloose'. She wasn't sure if Ryder knew it yet, but Jake was pissed at him; perhaps he was even as pissed at Ryder as he was at her.

And why shouldn't Jake be pissed at her? She had betrayed him. She had betrayed him with one of his closest – perhaps she could go so far as to say one of his only – friends. She could have just not told him. She could have pretended it never happened and just moved on with her life. She could have kept her boyfriend, and she could have kept her best friend, and no one would have gotten hurt.

But was that even true? Obviously, Ryder had been hurting for months. She had just been too blind to see it. She had let Kitty get under her skin when Ryder had canceled their date to go to see a doctor, and thus she had assumed that he was just making some lame excuse to blow her off. Why had she never even stopped to think about the fact that maybe it had sucked for him when she had immediately turned around and asked Jake out for that night instead?

Why did he even still like her? She had never really believed that either boy could really care about a girl like her, but especially after the way she had treated Ryder… Yet he knew her favorite flower. Her favorite songs. The kind of jewelry she liked. He probably would have remembered that her favorite movie was 'The Hunger Games'. It seemed that he had paid attention to everything she had ever said to him. It was as if every word mattered to him.

Maybe she didn't even want Jake to be her boyfriend anymore. Maybe that was why she had told him and created this mess for the three of them. Maybe she wanted a reason for him to break up with her so that she wouldn't have to be the one to call the relationship off. Confidence had never really been her strong point; she wasn't the type who was able to just cut someone out of her life. Perhaps it wasn't guilt that had driven her to confess after all, but rather she had been motivated by a desire to put the ball in Jake's court and let him make the decision for her.

She wasn't sure that that was true, either. She knew that she still really cared for Jake; she wouldn't have been having nightmares about his reaction to the situation if she didn't. Jake had always intrigued her. He was the mysterious bad boy with the voice of an angel and eyes that made her melt when she got lost in them. He was the sensitive guy who tried his best to make her Valentine's Day amazing (even if _Ryder_ was the one that actually knew all the things that made her happy). He had been there for her even when the whole Glee club had been angry with her after Sectionals. He had chosen her, _Marley Rose_, over a beautiful blond cheerleader like Kitty Wilde. Jake made her feel wanted, and being with him was exciting. She had been infatuated with him since the day she met him, and she had no reason to think that had changed now that they were officially together.

But then why couldn't she get Ryder out of her mind? If Jake was so awesome, if he really was such an amazing boyfriend, then why was she picturing herself making out with Ryder when Jake was finally the one making a grand, romantic gesture for her? She hadn't even let Jake kiss her; she hadn't wanted to lose that feeling of what it would be like to hear _Ryder _singing 'Unchained Melody' to her instead. Most puzzling of all, why had she, when confessing to Kitty, told the other girl that she still _liked_ Jake when just a few weeks ago they had said 'I love you' for the first time?

She finally dragged herself out of bed, but the action did nothing to drag her out of her thoughts. It was another day, and she knew she would have to face Jake. She knew sooner or later they would have to decide where they stood, but Marley just wasn't sure what she wanted. Both guys were so important to her, and she didn't want to lose either one of them. Unfortunately, she had a feeling that there was no going back; if she dumped Jake for Ryder, then there was a good chance he would never forgive either one of them. He was a Puckerman, after all. His older brother was notorious for holding grudges, an d from what she had seen so far, Jake wasn't much different. He had put aside his dislike of Ryder once; there was very little chance he would be able to do it again if she chose Ryder over him.

Plus, did she even want to choose Ryder over him? She still didn't know. He was one of the best friends she had ever had; did she want to risk that by being in a relationship with him? She obviously wasn't very good at being someone's girlfriend, if her recent performance was any indication. Plus, she had had feelings for Jake long before she had even met Ryder. Could she just forget about those feelings? And if she did, wouldn't it just make Ryder feel like he was her second choice at this point? She had meant it when she told him how amazing all of his Valentine's Day ideas were, but she had also chosen Jake over him once; if she went running to Ryder right now, it wouldn't be fair to him. He would think she only wanted to be with him because she had blown her chance with Jake.

Of course, he probably wouldn't feel that way if he knew she had been fantasizing about kissing him again… But revealing that to anyone would be beyond mortifying. She didn't think she was ready to admit something so personal to either boy, and even if she was, Ryder had barely talked to her since he had apologized for the kiss on Valentine's Day. What if avoiding her had been more than just respect for her feelings for Jake? What if he regretted it because he realized he didn't have feelings for her anymore? She still didn't quite know what was so special about her to have these two boys both wanting to be with her; perhaps Ryder had discovered that he had built her up in his mind to be better than she truly was.

Her stomach sunk a bit at that thought, so she tried to cheer herself with the memory of his smile when she had danced with him yesterday at Glee Club. There was no way that boy could fake a smile like that; she had never seen that look on his face around anyone else. Maybe he just didn't realize that Jake knew what had happened between the two of them. She felt overwhelmed by guilt when she remembered the look on Jake's face as he had stormed away from her, and it crashed down on her even more when she realized that this must be how she had been making Ryder feel, too. All those times she had gone to him for advice about Jake, and he had played the dutiful friend. He had given her a shoulder to cry on when she thought that she had lost Jake after Sectionals; he had encouraged her to be patient with Jake while at the same time he had planted ideas in Jake's head about how to make Marley happy.

Marley resisted the urge to crawl back into bed and hide her head underneath her pillows. How on earth was she going to face her boyfriend – ex-boyfriend? She still didn't know what he was. She grabbed her cell phone, hoping to see some sort of message from him that would give her a sign, but Jake had never been the type of guy to text her night and day anyway.

She had been right not to expect any messages from Jake. She tried not to let herself be disappointed that there were no messages from Ryder, either – sometimes he would send her silly things late at night when he couldn't sleep. Instead, she found a message from Kitty.

_Well, well, well – Three Nipples was one unhappy Puckerman when I was hanging with his brother last night. Does this mean I should expect to see you on the dyslexic wonder's arm today?_

Marley groaned. Having Kitty involved was the last thing she needed. Sure, she had confessed everything that had happened to the cheerleader before their mash-up – she was fairly sure they were friends these days, after all, and Kitty had much more experience with these situations than she did – but she still couldn't get over how bad Kitty made her feel about herself sometimes. She still wasn't exactly stable after her eating disorder ordeal. If she was honest, she had thrown up a few times since Sectionals; it wasn't obsessive like it had been, but she had definitely found herself kneeling over a few toilets since she had started dating Jake. She had to make sure she stayed thin if she wanted to keep a guy like him around.

Plus, even if Kitty did decide to be supportive in this particular situation, she still didn't need the sassy cheerleader to intervene. Marley could only imagine what a disaster it would be if she found Kitty talking to either Ryder or Jake.

As if Kitty had read her mind, the phone lit up again. _Don't worry, Princess Pukealot – I haven't said anything to either one of your boy toy. Just try to get your shit together soon before Baby Puckerman punches something – or someone. _Marley tried to take some small comfort in that fact, but all it did was remind her of how badly she had hurt Jake, and how she needed to own up to that soon.

Part of her wanted to go straight to Ryder and tell him everything that had happened. He was one of her best friends, after all, and when best friends are hurting, they let each other know. She was afraid, though – she didn't want to have to see that kind of look on his face, too. Maybe she should just leave him alone until she figured out what was going on with her and Jake. The last thing she wanted to do was lead him on anymore than she already had.

"Marley! Shouldn't you be in the shower by now? It's almost time to go, and you still need to eat breakfast!" Mrs. Rose called up the stairs to her daughter. Marley shoved her fingers to her temples and massaged her head. All of her emotions were giving her a headache. At least she wouldn't have time to eat now, though – she had a feeling this morning would bring with it enough stress to send her running towards a toilet the first chance she got.

"Sorry, Mom! Missed my alarm – I'll hurry!" Marley lied as she ducked inside of her bathroom. She had a feeling today would be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, but at least she could take solace in the fact that the worst was over, and her nightmares of a fight between Jake and Ryder hadn't come true.

At least not yet…


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or any songs or other trademarked/copyrighted things that I may mention in this story. I am obsessed with Ryder and Marley. If you don't believe me, you should see my Tumblr. I warn you in advance that I haven't been the most reliable about finishing stories in the past, but I do have an 11 chapter outline for this story, so that's at least promising.**

Chapter 2

Ryder Lynn ran his right hand through his hair as he entered the hallways of McKinley High. It was a nervous tick that he had recently developed.

A new sort of hyperawareness had filled him since Valentine's Day. Every day, he tried to resist the urge to go talk to Marley the way he had before their kiss; he was scared now that seeking her out would make Jake suspicious, or worse, would make Marley herself feel uncomfortable. He missed being able to go chat with his best friend, but he knew that, after he had assaulted her face, she deserved space to figure things out for herself.

Worse than the ache he felt from forcing himself to avoid Marley's locker was the sinking in his gut he felt whenever he walked past Jake's locker. For the past couple of months he had endured the rare days when Jake showed up to school on time; on those days Ryder usually found Jake and Marley acting all _adorable_ and _couple-y_. He had done his best not to let it affect him, but after all of the work he, Ryder, had put in to making sure that Valentine's Day was perfect for Marley, only for Jake to assume that he was _getting laid_ as a result… Ryder couldn't deal with it anymore. That combined with the guilt of kissing Marley – because she was still his bro's girl, no matter what douchey comments he had made – had created an unbearable situation for him whenever he saw his two friends together.

A selfish part of him liked to think that Marley and Jake's interactions had seemed different since Ryder had kissed her, but it was probably just his imagination. He was reading too much into the way Marley's eyes seemed to linger on him instead of staying put on Jake, or into the fact that her smile wasn't quite as bright as it had been in the weeks before. She was just stressed out about the situation that he had put her in; it wasn't because she had any feelings for him.

He had known that before, but when she had said to him that she knew he was the one who had remembered all of her favorite things and made sure that Valentine's was perfect for her, and she had told him that whenever he did that for a girl for real, she would be the luckiest girl in the world… He hadn't been able to help himself. He had waited for so long for her to realize he had never given up on her, and a small part of him…

But she wasn't that kind of girl. He knew that, and he had been stupid anyway. Now he had gone and messed everything up, and he didn't even know if she was okay. She didn't seem terribly upset – he couldn't get that smile from yesterday's performance of 'Footloose' out of his head – but maybe that was because she had decided that the kiss meant nothing, and she could go on being happy with Jake.

Fortunately, today he didn't see Marley at Jake's locker – perhaps Jake was going to skip first period today, since he hated math. Ryder rustled through his own nearby locker quickly though, just in case they did show up.

"Oh, man," he muttered to himself, realizing that he had left his own math book in the choir room yesterday afternoon. That was back on the other side of the school and would lead him right past Marley's locker. He knew he wouldn't be able to resist talking to her if those blue eyes of hers even briefly looked his way.

He cracked the door open to the choir room, but two voices stopped him in his tracks. He could hear Marley and Jake, and the last thing he needed was to walk in on one of their makeout sessions. He moved to close the door, but something about the tone in Marley's voice stopped him.

"Jake, please… I know you're upset, but can't you at least talk to me?" she pleaded. Ryder knew he should close the door, he really should, but…

"Why should I, Marley? You kissed another dude! I mean, I knew that he still had feelings for you, but – " _Oh shit_. Not only were they fighting, but they were fighting about him. He could hear how upset Marley was, and it was his fault.

_You sure do know how to treat a girl, Lynn_, he thought to himself bitterly. He made her feel uncomfortable and now it was his fault that Jake was angry at her, too. He went to close the door again, amazed that they hadn't noticed it was slightly ajar, as Marley cut Jake off.

"You knew?!" she asked incredulously. "You knew he had feelings for me and you still asked him to do all of that stuff to help you?" Her tone had changed slightly – _was that a hint of anger?_ – and Ryder's hand left the doorknob once more.

"Well yeah – he remembered all kinds of mushy crap that you had said to him before. I wanted to impress you! Now I don't know why I wasted my time… You probably would have liked it better coming from him anyway," Jake muttered darkly.

"Mushy crap?" Marley sounded slightly wounded. Ryder felt a surge of protectiveness and wished that he could reassure her; what kind of boyfriend thought his girlfriend's interests were _mushy crap_? He hoped that Jake was just saying these things in anger and that he didn't really feel that way about the things Marley cared about.

"Marley, I've told you. I don't do this monogamy thing; I've never had to pay attention to a girl's favorite flowers or candy or jewelry or movie or _whatever_ before. I thought you said yesterday that you appreciated that I tried!"

"Yeah, but I didn't think trying meant that you were _deliberately_ hurting one of your friends! Didn't you stop to think about how hard that must be for him? If you knew that he had those kinds of feelings for me, why would you rub it in his face like that? God, you made him sit there and watch everything you did during Valentine's week, and you just expected him to feel peachy every time I just swooned over how sweet _his_ ideas were?" Ryder tried to quell the surge in his spirits as he listened to Marley defend him; he wouldn't let him read into it, wouldn't let him think that it was out of anything more than respect for him as a friend.

"Seriously? He kissed you behind my back and you're _defending _him? Why are you even bothering to apologize to me, Marley? Why are you here begging for me to forgive you if you're more worried about Ryder's feelings than mine?"

"That's not fair." Marley's voice had dropped so much that Ryder could barely hear her give her response. "I care about both of you. You're my boyfriend, and he's one of my best friends. I just…"

"You just what? You figured it's okay to suck face with one of your best friends? You asked me to change and do this whole one-person-only stuff for you, and I tried, and then _you_…_" _Jake's tone had grown accusing.

"I know!" Marley's volume rose again, and her tone sounded desperate. "I know, I know, I know. I screwed up. I hurt you. I made a mess out of everything. I shouldn't have kissed him back, I shouldn't have – it was so hypocritical of me to let that happen after all you've done for me – but please, you have to realize that I've always cared about you. You were there first, Jake, and from the moment we met…" Marley trailed off, and Ryder tried to ignore the fact that she hadn't mentioned that she had also hurt _him_. Jake had shut her down the first time she had tried to acknowledge Ryder's feelings, after all.

Harder to ignore was the tenderness in her voice when she started talking about the first time she met Jake. He didn't want to listen to anymore, but he really did need that math book, and he couldn't interrupt.

"Does that really matter to you? That I was there first? By that logic you may as well be saying I should have stayed with Kitty," Jake muttered darkly.

"You've still never explained that one," Marley pointed out. "At least Ryder's a good person."

"And who says Kitty's not? You seem friendly enough with her these days," Jake shot back. "Look, Marley, I can't deal with this right now – especially when you haven't even been able to tell me what you want from me. You're begging me not to be angry at you – and not to be angry at Ryder, which, _pfft_, yeah right – but I'm not even sure what that means." Ryder gulped as Jake scoffed at the thought of not being angry with him; who knew what kind of trouble that would lead to later.

"Maybe I'm not sure either." Marley's tone was tearful. "I've always wanted you," she confessed. "I just… things got confusing, okay? I didn't mean to do this to you… or to him. To either of you. I just – you're both really important to me, okay? And I really like you, but…"

"You _like_ me? Do you even hear yourself? What happened to duets? To the calendar? To the 'I love you's'?" Jake's tone had softened; his anger seemed to have been replaced by hurt.

"You really want to tell me everything leading up to that calendar was your idea?" Marley asked quietly. Her voice hid her emotions, which was rare for a girl who so often wore her heart on her sleeve.

Jake ignored her question – at least he wasn't going to pretend Ryder hadn't urged him to make Marley feel special then, too. "You really like me but you love him? Was that what you were going to say? Because I really don't want to hear it, Marley. Maybe I'm not the most sensitive guy in the world, or the best at being all romantic, but if that was what you wanted why did you waste my time instead of picking Ryder in the first place?"

Ryder couldn't help but wonder the same thing himself, but he pushed back the dejected feeling he got whenever he remembered his could-have-been first date with Marley. He had been so stupid to cancel on her. He had been so excited – he should have just found the time to keep his plans with her too, instead of taking it for granted that she would wait around for him. He knew that Jake had been showing his interest in her then too; he never should have given him the opportunity.

"I never meant to be a waste of time," Marley said sadly.

"Oh come on, Marley, don't take it like that," Jake protested. "You know what I mean. I just – you need to figure out what you want. I can't guarantee you that I'll just be waiting with open arms if you decide you want me, but we can't fix things like this, either."

"I know – " Marley began, but Jake wasn't finished talking yet.

"Yesterday was all me, Marley. The ceramic wheel, the song from your favorite romantic movie – " _There was no ceramic wheel in The Hunger Games_, Ryder thought to himself, " – serenading you with 'Unchained Melody'? I thought I finally had an awesome idea on how to impress you, an idea that was totally my own, and it just seems like it wasn't good enough, since right afterwards you started talking about Ryder."

_Well that's interesting_. "And then you just let me leave – " This time Marley succeeded in cutting off Jake.

"I begged you not to go! And I found you now that you've cooled off, didn't I? It's not like I was happy to watch you walk away," Marley interjected.

"Yeah, after you were all happy to dance with Ryder right in front of me at rehearsal! Really, Marley? It seemed pretty clear to me that I'm not the one that you want, so why are we even here?" Ryder tried not to take too much satisfaction from the fact that Jake had also noticed the way Marley had beamed at him during 'Footloose'. It was nice to know that he hadn't imagined it, though.

"That's not fair. I don't want to lose either one of you. I just…" Marley seemed at a loss for words.

"Well, you've got a funny way of showing it. Look, Marley, I thought you were a great girl. Maybe you still are. But I need time to get over what you did, and even if I didn't have my Puckerman pride to protect, I would still think you needed some time to sort shit out. I'm not Ryder, okay, and maybe it was stupid of me to try to impress you using his ideas – maybe I set up some unrealistic expectation for what kind of boyfriend I'm gonna be." Silence followed, and Ryder could imagine Marley's hesitant nod – the same one she had given him when he had apologized to her for kissing her in the first place.

"So… we're broken up." Ryder couldn't tell if Marley was questioning Jake or stating a fact.

"I don't know," Jake admitted. "You're the first girl I've ever thought I loved, and Puckerman's aren't quitters. Do you want to be broken up? Do you want to just get out now and run off to some fairy tale with _him_?" Ryder could tell that Jake was barely keeping himself from sneering, even though he couldn't see his friend's – were they still going to be friend's after this – face.

"Can't we just – you said we should all get some space? Can we settle with that for now?" Marley's voice was back to a whisper again, and Ryder felt that the conversation was coming to a close, if for no other reason than the fact that the homeroom bell would ring soon. He closed the door slowly, not sure he wanted to hear the conversation's conclusion. He backtracked to the bathroom down the hall and gathered his thoughts for a moment.

So Marley told Jake. Marley told Jake, and she didn't even deny that it meant something to her. She told Jake she was confused. She and Jake were, at the very least, taking a break. Ryder tried to calm his racing heart. She still needed space, probably from both of them. Plus, she had said she _loved_ Jake just a couple of weeks ago. It wouldn't be right to go for her now, even if they did break up. It hadn't been right to go for her after Valentine's Day. He just needed to calm down, let her be, not push anything. He refused to be that kind of guy. Jake was his friend too, not just Marley. He had to back off and let them figure out things on their own.

Plus, this was Marley Rose – she was worth waiting for, no matter how long it took for her to figure out her own feelings.

Ryder took a deep breath, and then heard the first bell that told him it was time to head to homeroom. He quickly made his way to the choir room to grab his math book, hoping that Jake and Marley would be gone.

He got half of his wish. He pushed in to find Jake alone, sitting right next to the chair where he had left his math book. Ryder moved toward him quietly, hoping he could grab the book and go without any fuss, but Jake looked up and glared at him.

"Oh, hey man. Just forgot my math book," Ryder said, feeling too guilty to meet his friend in the eyes. He had no idea how to act in this sort of situation; he had never been the douchey guy that went behind a friend's back before. Plus, he had just eavesdropped on an entire conversation between Marley and Jake, and since he hadn't spoken to Marley, didn't that mean he should act clueless? He had left it up to her to decide what she did and didn't want Jake to know; if Ryder had been the one to tell him, it would have seemed like he was trying to force them to break up so that he could have Marley to himself. He had been willing to let Marley pretend she hadn't kissed back if that was what she wanted; it was up to her to decide what she wanted to do, and not his place to intervene in their relationship.

_Not that that stopped him from kissing her and screwing up her relationship for her anyway_, he reminded himself miserably.

"Oh, shut up, Lynn," Jake said, standing up. "I know about what happened." Ryder opened his mouth to apologize, but before he could get a single word out, Jake's fist collided with his face.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or any songs or other trademarked/copyrighted things that I may mention in this story. I am obsessed with Ryder and Marley. If you don't believe me, you should see my Tumblr. I warn you in advance that I haven't been the most reliable about finishing stories in the past, but I do have an 11 chapter outline for this story, so that's at least promising. **

**Copyright: I forget who sang the original version of 'When A Man Loves a Woman', but it obviously does not belong to me.**

Chapter 3

Ryder recoiled from the impact. _Shit_. That was going to leave a bruise. At least Jake had missed his nose – the last thing he needed was a trip to the hospital for a broken nose.

Jake looked at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to fight back. Ryder hesitated. Yeah, Jake had just attacked him, but he did kind of deserve it. Ryder knew that if the roles were reversed and his supposed friend had kind-of-sort-of-maybe taken Marley away, he would want to throw a punch or two.

Plus, he had heard Marley plea with Jake not to be angry; the worst thing he could do was turn this into a huge brawl that not only drew more attention to the situation but also just made her feel worse about the situation. _I shouldn't hit Jake back, I shouldn't hit Jake back…_

BOOM. His hesitation cost him as Jake shoved him into the wall.

"Really, dude? You have the balls to kiss my girlfriend behind my back but you're not man enough to fight me back? You wanted to fight for her, so fight for her!" Jake shouted at him. Ryder closed his eyes, sorely tempted now to fight back – Jake was talking about Marley as if she was a possession they could just claim through a fistfight.

"Hey, hey, HEY! Break it up!" Ryder had never been so happy to see Mr. Schuester in his entire life. He felt Jake's grip wrench away from him, and his initial reaction was to step backwards until he remembered that he was already pinned to a wall.

"What's going on here?" Finn asked, also entering the choir room. _Thank God for the homeroom bell_. Jake tried to wrench away from Mr. Schuester as Finn stepped towards Ryder and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"This jackass – " Jake was quickly silenced.

"Puckerman, language," Mr. Schuester interjected.

"He kissed my girlfriend!" Jake raged, still trying to get out of Mr. Schuester's grip. In his thrashing, he seemed to miss Mr. Schuester's words, but Ryder noticed the way he muttered, "Seems to be pretty common around here," as his eyes darted towards Finn. Finn's grip tightened slightly on Ryder's shoulder.

"As – erm – unfortunate as that is, Jake, that's still no excuse to throw a punch at him," Mr. Schue said. "Not only is it against school rules, but you two are part of a team – you've got to get over your drama if we're going to have any hope of winning Regionals this year. Our performance at Sectionals was rather disappointing, so there's a lot of work to be done." Again, Ryder noticed the glare towards Finn, but he knew better than to question the animosity.

"Seriously? You're making this about Regionals and the freaking Glee club?" Jake looked slightly abashed. "What about bros before hoes?"

"Puckerman! Language!" Mr. Schuester repeated emphatically. "Come on, I'm taking you to see Principal Figgins. Hudson – take Ryder to the nurse. You're going to want some ice for that face," the Glee club instructor pointed out as he dragged the still angry Jake out of the room.

Ryder turned to look at Finn, who was shaking his head. "I'm surprised he didn't get more preachy there," Finn said, seeming a bit bitter.

"Um – sorry?" Ryder asked, a bit puzzled. He had never heard Finn talk about his mentor this way before, and he had a feeling he wasn't supposed to be noticing the gestures and comments going on around him.

"What? Oh, nothing. Let's get you to the nurse before your face swells up to, like, the size of a baboon or something," Finn said. Ryder was pretty sure he meant 'balloon', but then again, he wasn't the smartest guy in the world, so maybe he just had never heard Finn's expression before.

"So what happened back there?" Finn asked as they strolled towards the nurse's office. Homeroom was probably nearly over by now, but the hallways were still fortunately empty. Ryder didn't need anyone noticing what was happening and telling Marley that he and Jake had gotten into a fight – sort of.

"Er – I went to get my math book from the choir room, and Jake was in there, and I guess he had just talked to Marley, so he, um, well yeah," Ryder said, pointing at his face.

"Dude, can you really blame him?" Finn asked, shaking his head. "Although usually it's the other way around… I've either punched or wanted to punch a Puckerman many times over girl stuff." Ryder looked up at Finn, the man who had taken him under his wing and convinced him to join Glee club, and remembered for the first time that he really wasn't that much older than Ryder was.

"Really?" Ryder asked, surprised. He had always heard that Finn had been friends with Jake's older brother.

"Oh, yeah, totally, dude. I almost didn't compete in Sectionals my first year in the Glee club because Puck got my girlfriend pregnant, and I had just found out that he was the dad," Finn reminisced. "And then there was the time he helped my other girlfriend cheat on me for revenge… Yeah, that wasn't pretty, either."

"Wow… Makes me feel like less of a jerk, I guess," Ryder said. It was starting to sound like the Glee club had always been a bit incestuous – Finn hadn't mentioned that part before when he had convinced Ryder to sign up.

"So you really just kissed her, then?" Finn questioned.

"Well, yeah, but – um – you're kind of my teacher. I'm not really sure this is the kind of stuff I'm supposed to be talking to you about," Ryder pointed out. Mostly, he just didn't want to talk about things right now – kissing Marley was already all he had been able to think about for the past week, but he had tried his best to keep it all bottled up.

"I wouldn't really count on that lasting very long," Finn admitted, but fortunately, they had reached the nurse's office, where immediately a woman rushed over to him and chastised him for the swelling on his face. She shooed Finn out of the office and began to tend to Ryder without even asking what had happened – _I guess maybe she's used to all the Glee club's fighting, too_, Ryder thought to himself.

Ryder had missed most of math because of his trip to the infirmary, which was just as well, since Jake was in that class with him. He had skipped the rest of it just in case – Jake had probably been sent home by principal Figgins for the day, but there was no sense in risking it. It wasn't like he was going to learn anything new in the last ten minutes of the period, anyway.

As for history after that – well, Ryder wasn't the type to skip class often, but he had briefly glimpsed Marley in the hallway, and she had looked so lost that he hadn't been able to bear the idea of sitting next to her and knowing that he played a large part in causing her to feel so miserable. He had instead headed past the classroom and gone straight to the auditorium.

He felt a little bit girly about the fact that he just wanted some time alone on the stage to think and to sing, but he had bottled up all of his feelings for months now. He had tried so hard to pretend that he was just cool with everything, and that he didn't care that Marley and Jake were always in his face with their "cuteness", but most days he just wanted to pull his own hair out. How had he let himself lose his chance with Marley? And what was wrong with him, that he would just help Jake to win her over more and more? Did he enjoy hurting this much?

He felt a little bit stupid thinking that he was in love with Marley, but was that really so crazy? He had gone out of his way for months just to see her smile, even if it meant having to watch her smile at how happy someone else besides him was making her.

"_When a man loves a woman  
Can't keep his mind on nothing else  
He'll trade the world  
For the good thing he's found  
If she's bad he can't see it  
She can do no wrong  
Turn his back on his best friend  
If he put her down_

When a man loves a woman  
Spend his very last dime  
Tryin' to hold on to what he needs  
He'd give up all his comfort  
Sleep out in the rain  
If she said that's the way it ought to be

Well, this man loves a woman  
I gave you everything I had  
Tryin' to hold on to your precious love  
Baby, please don't treat me bad…"

Ryder's attention was jerked back to reality when he noticed that the auditorium door was open and there was a figure standing in the light of the hallway. He couldn't make out her face, but he could tell that it was Marley. _Well, that's embarrassing_…

She hesitantly closed the door and walked towards the stage where he had been pouring his heart out in song just seconds before. Time seemed to slow down as she walked towards him, and he hoped that he wasn't blushing too much – although if he was, it was probably hard to tell thanks to the bruise on the left side of his face.

"Hi," she said shyly, her blue eyes lingering on his face.

"Hi," he responded, bowing his head in shame. She still wore the same sad look he had seen in the hallway earlier, only now there was something else there, too; something that he couldn't quite read.

"I – um – you weren't in class," she stated, sounding a bit unsure of herself.

"I… yeah," he nodded, feeling more than a bit stupid. "Why aren't you there?"

"I wanted to find you," she admitted, not quite meeting his eyes. His heart skipped a beat. "I – um – well, Kitty told me she saw Jake getting sent home for the day by Mr. Schuester, and she heard Finn telling him that he got you to the nurse's office okay, and I just figured… Are you all right?" She raised her hand to gently touch his bruised cheek, but then immediately jerked away from him as if she had shocked herself with her actions.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I kind of deserved it," Ryder admitted, echoing his thoughts and Finn's words from earlier. He couldn't bear to meet her eyes, but he also was afraid of what would happen if he let the awkward silence fall between them. This was the first – okay, maybe second – time he had ever felt this uncomfortable around Marley, and he didn't like the feeling.

"I'm really sorry," he breathed, looking back into her eyes. She blinked, for some reason taken aback by his words.

"Sorry? For what?" Ryder sighed. He had been afraid that she was blaming herself for the entire situation, and that seemed to be his proof.

"For doing this to you. For putting you in this position, and screwing things up with Jake. I knew how happy you were with him, and it was just… I was so stupid to think – especially since you had a boyfriend… And now he's mad at you too, even though everything was my fault. I just – I really messed everything up." Jumbled thoughts spilled out of his mouth. He wasn't entirely sure that he was making any sense at all, but Marley's eyes were filled with understanding.

"It's not all your fault." Marley stated it quietly, but her voice was very matter of fact. "I'm the one who kissed you back." He hated himself for the way his heart jumped at her admission that she had returned the kiss. He squelched the urge to ask her why she had kissed back, even though he was dying to know if it had meant as much to her as it meant to him. Now was neither the time nor place for such questions; he refused to pressure her when she was still obviously upset about the way things were playing out with Jake.

"I shouldn't have – I should have told him it was all me. That you pushed me away, that it didn't mean anything to you. Then he would hate me, but everything would be okay with you guys, and then I wouldn't feel like such a piece of crap for making you so unhappy. You're my best friend, Marley, and it was so selfish of me to still want something more when I knew you were with somebody else. I'm so, so sorry that…"

"I heard you singing," Marley interrupted. "Before, when I came in. Did you – I mean – was that about me?" she blushed. Ryder didn't even try to deny it.

"Of course," he said softly. "Marley, I mean – I know it's not the time and place – it may never be – but you have to know by now how much you mean to me. Everything – even if it killed me to see you with Jake – I just wanted you to be happy. I just hope you can forgive me for ruining this for you – I hope you'll still be my friend…" _I hope you'll tell me you feel the same way about me_, he mentally added.

"Ryder. Stop apologizing. Please. I'm not mad at you. I'm just – I'm mad at me." Marley sighed heavily, sitting down on the edge of the stage. It hadn't even occurred to Ryder how awkward their conversation must have looked; they had been standing, staring straight at each other, at the front of the stage.

He took a seat next to her and gave her an inquisitive look. It seemed like there was something more that she wanted to say, but she seemed unwilling to admit to whatever was on her mind.

"You have no reason to be mad at yourself," he said reassuringly, but at that point her words spilled over.

"I was thinking about kissing you while I was with Jake," she blurted out very quickly. It sounded as if she didn't even take a breath in between her words. Her eyes, which had stayed so steady up until this point, seemed to cloud a bit.

_Wow_. Ryder had heard their conversation earlier, had heard Jake complain that Marley had talked about Ryder right after his romantic gesture towards her, but he hadn't expected _that_. He tried to think of some kind of joke he could make to cheer her up, but that was more Jake's kind of thing. He couldn't resist the urge to pull her into a hug, though – she was still his best friend, and she was still hurting, even if it was partially his fault.

"And I still don't know what I want – does that make me a terrible person?" She buried her head into his chest; at least he wasn't repelling her any more than he was sure he already had.

"No way – just a confused one. I totally get that." He breathed in the scent of her hair – it smelled like vanilla today. She must have changed shampoos since they had performed in Grease.

"So would you get it if I – I mean – you'll still be here for me when I figure stuff out? You're still going to be my friend even if I don't make the decision that you want?" She pulled back a bit, as if asking this question made her extremely nervous.

"You're not going to get any pressure or questions or anything from me. You deserve some space to figure stuff out for you instead of just worrying about everyone else. I'll still be here for you when you're ready. Always, Marley," he reassured her, squeezing her hand.

"Thank you," she whispered. "I just hope Jake feels the same way." Ryder tried not to let a dark shadow cross his face when she brought Jake up again. He had to be supportive. He owed her at least that much. She let go of his hand, and he had a feeling it would be quite some time before he felt her touch again.

"What do you say we get back to class?" she proposed, heading towards the door.


	4. Chapter 4

**I'll Be Coming Home, Wait For Me**

**Author's Note: **Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up! I was distracted by the urge to write a really sweet but cheesy Ryley one-shot, so I encourage you to go check it out.

Also, feedback is encouraged – this is the first time I've really written fanfiction in about ten years, and it's a little bit terrifying.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee or any songs or other trademarked/copyrighted things that I may mention in this story. The song in this chapter is Huey Lewis and the News – 'If This is It'. I warn you in advance that I haven't been the most reliable about finishing stories in the past, but I still have my outline for this story, and this is my fourth chapter in a week, so that's a good sign!

**Chapter 4**

Ryder kept his promise to give Marley space; he nodded his head in acknowledgment when he saw her in the hallways, but apart from that he didn't initiate conversation. It was a difficult adjustment for him, since he was used to being able to talk to her whenever he wanted, but he was getting used to it. He found himself spending a lot more time with Sam, Blaine, Tina, and Brittany, and was grateful that older Glee club members had taken him under their wing.

He didn't know what he expected to happen; of course there was a part of him that hoped Marley would appear one day and tell him that she realized how much he meant to her and how she wanted to be with him, but the other part of him was dreading the day when he saw her kissing Jake in the hallways again instead.

About two weeks later was the first time he noticed her actually talking to Jake again, and he tried not to read into it too much. After an excruciating series of glee club practices where the three of them did their best to sit on totally opposite sides of the room, it should have been nice to see that Jake and Marley were sitting next to each other and making comments to each other every now and then, and their faces even contorted in ways that vaguely resembled smiles.

Kitty scowled a bit when she walked in and saw Jake and Marley sitting side by side, but she refrained from making any of her bitchy comments. She did, however, do something unusual by flopping down into the seat next to Ryder.

"What are you looking at, Bieber hair?" she snapped before turning away.

For a couple of days after that, there was no sign of friendliness between Marley and Jake, but she still hadn't made any effort to talk to Ryder again, either. Maybe it was all just a fluke. Maybe they had sat next to each other without thinking and had just tried to make the best of an awkward situation.

The following week, though, it happened again, and this time it definitely wasn't an accident. Marley and Jake had walked in together, and Marley was laughing at something that Jake was saying. This time, Kitty's claws came out.

"When you two start sucking face, please keep in mind that you look like a couple of Cabbage Patch kids whose faces are just mashed together by some little kid who's just watched his first episode of the Jersey Shore and thinks that's what a makeout session is supposed to look like," she said, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly before sitting own next to Ryder for the fourth time in as many days.

Ryder faked a smile through their practice run of Ke$ha's 'Die Young', but it was all he could do to stay focused on the dance steps they were learning. Mr. Schuester, always ambivalent towards the dramas going on with his students, had put Jake and Marley together as dance partners, and while they definitely didn't seem to be all over each other, they didn't appear to feel terribly uncomfortable with each other, either.

Ryder found himself paired with Kitty, who normally would have made all kinds of snide remarks about how unfocused he was, but fortunately she was also acting out of sorts that day. The second the bell rang, she stormed out of the classroom. Ryder felt that she had the right idea, but he didn't want to appear too eager to get away from Marley and Jake; that probably wasn't the right way to renew his friendship with either one of them. Still, Kitty only had a thirty second headstart before Ryder similarly exited the choir room.

Glee was the last period that day, but Ryder wasn't in a hurry to go home. His mom had been breathing down a lot lately making sure that he was getting all of his studying done, and he didn't want any questions about why he was acting so distracted.

The weather was growing a little bit warmer as February turned to March, and Ryder found himself idly wandering towards the football field. What the hell was happening? Were Marley and Jake back together, and she was afraid to tell Ryder? Were they just friends, and she was trying to preserve that for a little bit longer before she risked pissing Jake off by talking to Ryder again? Or did she just not care about how things looked to him because she didn't care about being friends with him anymore? Maybe she had realized in her time of taking space that she really was too mad at Ryder for screwing up her relationship with Jake to forgive him after all.

He hated himself for being sick of feeling so confused, because he knew he had promised Marley he would always be there for her. He still meant that, too – it was just a little harder than he had expected to watch her acting sort of normal with Jake when she was still avoiding him.

This was one of those situations where, if he were a Puckerman, he probably would have punched something, but fortunately Glee club had taught him that singing was an equally useful outlet. He didn't see anyone else around, and he found the familiar lyrics to a Huey Lewis and the News song coming to him.

"_I've been phoning night and morning  
I heard you say "tell him I'm not home"  
Now you're confessing, But I'm still guessing  
I've been your fool for so so long  
Girl don't lie, just to save my feelings  
Girl don't cry, and tell me nothing's wrong  
Girl don't try to make up phony reasons  
I'd rather leave than never believe_

_If this is it_  
_Please let me know_  
_If this ain't love you'd better let me know_  
_If this is it_  
_I want to know_  
_If this ain't love baby, just say so_

_You've been thinking_  
_And I've been drinking_  
_We both know that it's just not right_  
_Now you're pretending_  
_That it's not ending_  
_You'll say anything to avoid a fight_  
_Girl don't lie, and tell me that you need me_  
_Girl don't cry, and tell me nothing's wrong_  
_I'll be alrightone way or another_  
_So let me go, or make we want to stay_

_If this is it_  
_Please let me know_  
_If this ain't love you'd better let me know_  
_If this is it_  
_I want to know_  
_If this ain't love baby, just say so…"_

Ryder heard a slow clap coming from behind him and whirled around to see Kitty.

"How long have you been there?" he demanded of the blonde cheerleader.

"Long enough. Nice song," she said ironically. "I see they're getting to you, too, then." Ryder looked at her questioningly.

"Oh, come on – just because you are dumb doesn't mean you need to play dumb. I know about your little kissy-poo that started this shitstorm in the first place. Marley told me about it." Ryder returned her eyebrow raise with a look of complete annoyance. He didn't really have the patience for this right now. "She said it was pretty good, too," Kitty offered, which only increased his annoyance.

"No offense, Kitty, but you're pretty much the last person I want to talk to about this," he pointed out.

"Why do you even pretend to think that would offend me? I don't care what anyone thinks. I've got it all, thanks," Kitty reminded him, but he noticed a slight waver in her swagger.

"Oh yeah? So if you don't let anyone effect you, then why were you in such a hurry to get away from Jake and Marley earlier?"

"Oh, please. I just had to go barf about how disgusting they are," Kitty insisted, but Ryder persisted.

"Plus, you said _too_ when you were talking about them bothering me. So what's your problem? I thought you had moved up in the world of Puckerman's," Ryder said.

"I don't do this whole 'let's sit in a circle and share our feelings' crap, so stop expecting me to. That's more up your alley, Mr. I-sit-at-home-and-pine-for-Marley-instead-of-playing-Xbox-like-a-normal-dude," she retorted.

"Do you have to pretend to be such a bitch all the time? You're not so awful when you let yourself act like a normal human being, you know," he countered.

"Well, maybe you're not the only one who doesn't want to talk about it," Kitty admitted. "You're not the only one who got kicked to the curb when Hobo Barbie and Three Nipples got together, in case you forgot."

"Why do you do that? Why can't you just call them by their real names? It's not like they're Voldemort or something, no one's going to hurt you if you call them Marley and Jake. Er – well, okay, maybe saying their names together like that does kind of hurt a little bit." Kitty nodded in a rare moment of agreement.

"People seem to forget that I have a heart buried deep down inside of this hot bod," Kitty complained. "I'm Sue Sylvester's top bitch; I could have just about any guy at this school if I wanted them. Why has no one ever stopped to wonder why Jake is the only one that I bothered to date?"

Ryder felt a bit guilty when he realized that she had a point. He had never stopped to think about the fact that Kitty might actually have real feelings for Jake; he had always assumed that his teammate was just another pawn in whatever game she was always playing.

"So you actually like Jake." Kitty nodded. "Then why are you dating his brother? Doesn't that seem a little – I don't know – screwed up?"

"We can't all live in this fantasy world where we hope that being the nice guy will get the girl to ride away with us on a white horse at the end, Ryder. Most of the time, the good girl picks the bad boy, and the nice guy finishes last."

"That doesn't answer my question," he protested, knowing that Kitty was trying to put her walls back up.

"We were never really dating, okay? But Puck's been kind of crashing with Jake sometimes to try to get to know him better, and it's sort of awkward for him, but he doesn't really have anyone else in Lima except for Finn. So he thinks it's kind of nice to have a friend around, even one as bitchy as me. Sadie Hawkin's was a date, sure, but that was only because he told me I needed to stop trying to seduce Jake when he was trying to get on the right track and be a decent guy for Marley," Kitty admitted.

"Seduce him?" Ryder raised his eyebrows.

"I got a little bit desperate, okay? Jake's the first guy I've ever thought that I was in love with, and he didn't want me anymore. So I offered, and, well – it seemed like he was about to take me up on it until his brother intervened." Kitty wasn't meeting his eyes anymore.

"I guess he remembered my offer, though, because he's been trying to pressure me into giving it up to him ever since he found out about Marley kissing you. And – well – I may be desperate, but I don't want to be the rebound girl. I don't want my first time to be so that he can have revenge sex," she confided.

"Wow, Kitty – I had no idea," Ryder said.

"Yeah, well, do yourself a favor and pretend that you still have no idea. If anyone ever finds out about this, I will make sure the entire school knows that you have a weird penis piercing and a tattoo of Elmo on your ass," she warned.

"I don't have a – " Ryder began to protest, but she shook her finger at him as if he was a small child who had just done something wrong.

"And how will you ever be able to prove that?"

"Ah. You really are an evil genius. Fine, Wilde – I admit defeat." A silence fell between them for a moment before Ryder asked her "Do you think they're really back together?"

"No. Did you not pay attention to the Cabbage Patch Kid makeout theory? Plus, Jake may be a bit of a player, but I hope he wouldn't still be trying to get me to sleep with him even now if he had really taken little miss sunshine back," she grumbled.

"Wait, this is a continuous thing?" Ryder questioned. He hated to be encouraged by that news when he knew this situation was really hurting Kitty, but at the same time, at least it meant Marley hadn't officially chosen Jake over him yet.

"Fine. I'm kind of a tease, if you must know. I just – I guess I'm hoping if I let him think maybe it could happen for long enough, he'll start wanting it because he wants me, and not because he wants to hurt her. And it would be nice if she would get her head out of her ass and realize you're the one who's – well – you're both kind of dorks, you know." Kitty shoved him in an almost playful way.

"She still hasn't tried to talk to me," Ryder sighed.

"Well, that's her loss. You surprisingly don't suck." Kitty looked thoughtful for a moment, and then she seemed to have a 'Eureka' moment.

"You could make her see what she's missing."

"I'm not fake-dating you or getting roped into any one of your schemes, Kitty," Ryder stated matter of factly, but this only elicited another eye roll.

"As if I'd even slum it enough to pretend with you – you have a lot to learn still. No, doofus – you could set up an online dating profile. Meet a girl or two, conveniently bump into Marley with them. It'll drive her crazy to think that after all that mushy crap – "

"You sound just like Jake." Ryder couldn't help but chuckle a bit when Kitty repeated word-for-word what Jake had said during his argument with Marley.

" – you did for her, you would be ready to move on instead of sitting around waiting for her forever." Kitty seemed nonplussed by his interruption.

"Uh-uh. No way. Online dating is so not my thing," Ryder insisted.

"Whatever you say, Mega Stud," Kitty purred, mocking the name he had chosen during their duets competition months before. "But promise me you'll think about it. Best case scenario, you get the girl once and, knowing you, probably for all. Worst case scenario, you meet some hot girls and maybe get a real chance at moving on." She rose from the bleachers and began to prance away.

"Where are you going?" Ryder asked, surprised by the fact that he wanted to keep talking to her. The Ice Queen made for refreshingly honest conversation.

"Home, loser. You didn't expect me to waste all day talking to you, did you?"

"See you tomorrow," Ryder chuckled as her high-pony flipped behind her.

"Promise me you'll think about my idea!" she called back as she waved her hand in a definitive farewell.


	5. Chapter 5

**I'll Be Coming Home, Wait For Me**

**Author's Note: **So was anyone else seriously disappointed by this week's 'Feud' episode? It kind of killed a lot of my Ryley feels. I have an idea for another story about Ryder after watching that, but when I created an outline I wasn't even sure if I wanted it to end up Ryley or Ritty!

Also, feedback is still encouraged – this is the first time I've really written fanfiction in about ten years, and it's a little bit terrifying.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee or any songs or other trademarked/copyrighted things that I may mention in this story. The song in this chapter is 'Someday We'll Know' – originally by New Radicals, but the version I'm using is the one that the lead singer does with Mandy Moore in 'A Walk to Remember'.

**Chapter 5**

Kitty Wilde plopped herself down in a seat next to Marley Rose the next day in Glee.

"Hey Honey Boo Boo –w hat's the deal? Are we going to be sisters-in-law someday still or not?" the blonde cheerleader asked casually. She did a good job of keeping a straight face as she maintained her lie about dating the older Puckerman.

"Kitty!" Marley hissed under her breath as Ryder strode through the door. "This isn't the time to be talking about this," the brunette muttered, looking horrified as the blonde girl patted the seat on her other side for Ryder to sit in.

"Is that an invitation to sit down next to you? Did hell freeze over today?" Ryder joked, sitting down next to her and avoiding Marley's horrified gaze. Kitty shot him a smirk.

"I thought we established yesterday that you surprisingly don't suck – there aren't a lot of people like you in this classroom," she retorted. She couldn't help but smile: not only was it sort of nice to have someone else in the glee club who acknowledged that she was a human being and not Satan's fairy cheerleader, but she was totally helping him out in a less-than-straightfoward way by being flirty with him. Kitty could feel Marley's eyes boring into the back of her head when she heard how friendly the two had become almost overnight.

Ryder, however, proved oblivious to Marley's interest in talking to him. Instead, his eyes locked on Jake, who had just strolled through the door, and he turned his head away in embarrassment. Jake, never one to take shit from anybody, made a point of sliding into the seat on Marley's other side, where he loudly said, "Hey, Marley. How was your day?"

The boy on Kitty's right groaned so that only she could hear, and Kitty gave a slight head nod of agreement as Mr. Schuester strutted into the classroom. Their teacher seemed to have regained his swagger since Ms. Pillsbury had returned to work, although part of it probably also was due to Finn handing his Glee club back over to him before peacing out of town.

"Either he got that sweater vest in Canada, or this week's lesson is about legalizing marijuana," Kitty whispered to Ryder, who chuckled at the site of maple leaves all over Mr. Schuester's clothing. Kitty felt Marley's eyes on her again, but Ryder remained clueless.

"All right, everyone, listen up! I have an important announcement to make," Mr Schuester declared.

"You and Blaine have decided to swear off hair gel in order to protect the environment?" Artie began.

"You're leaving us again so that you can join N'SYNC on their upcoming reunion tour?" Tina offered.

"You're about to assign us our solos for your second attempt at a wedding?" Unique asked eagerly.

"I think you're right, the Canada thing sounds way more convincing," Ryder whispered to Kitty. She rolled her eyes at him.

"When are you going to learn that things are only funny when I say them? There's still so much work to do with you," she responded as Mr. Schue cut off the chatter.

"Something even more important – Regionals! I think it's time we start planning our set list," their teacher declared, and the choir room erupted with more chatter.

"But Mr. Schue, Regionals is still over a month away. You couldn't possibly be thinking about what we're going to sing yet, it's more than five minutes before the competition begins," Tina insisted.

"That's enough, everyone! I have something I want to try out. Despite all of our feuding, Finn really got something right when he was taking my place – he did an amazing job casting the leads in Grease. So for our duet, I was thinking we could have Marley and Ryder perform." He seemed oblivious to the fact that most of the club wanted to face-palm themselves in response; for someone who supposedly cared so much about his students, he sure did a bad job of keeping up with their personal lives.

Marley's face was unreadable, especially when Jake leapt to his feet and said, "No way, Mr. Schue! I lost out to this jerk for the role of Danny, why should I lose our for the solo at Regionals too?" Kitty noticed that Ryder, who had perked up a bit before, had deflated again in the chair next to her.

"And what about me? I'm supposed to be the new Rachel! I won our contest at the beginning of the year," Blaine pointed out, and Mr. Schue raised his hand just in time to stop Tina from similarly complaining.

"Now, Jake, just have a seat and let us try this out. Blaine, you calm down, too. The club can decide for themselves once we see what they can do. Plus, there's always room for more soloists in the group number. Marley? Ryder? Here's your music." Mr. Schue handed music to the people on either side of Kitty, and stared at them expectantly. Brad the pianist dramatically pointed at the space in front of him, indicating that Marley and Ryder should come stand in front of their peers.

"Oh, honestly," Kitty sighed, linking arms with the both of them and dragging them out of their seats.

"Mud-head, you stand here," she said, moving Marley around like a puppet so that her body was turned halfway towards her audience and halfway towards Ryder. "Wannabe-Bieber, here." Kitty did the same to Ryder before flouncing back to her seat.

"All right, begin," she instructed, and Jake glared at her.

"Since when do you act like you're the coach in here?" he demanded, but she merely smiled before the piano came to life.

"_Ninety miles outside Chicago,  
Can't stop driving, I don't know why,  
So many questions, I need an answer,  
Two years later you're still on my mind…" _Marley began breathily. She shyly avoided meeting Ryder's eyes until the last line, at which point she looked up and met the eyes that had been locked on her the whole time she had been singing.

"_Whatever happened to Amelia Earheat?  
Who holds the stars up in the sky?  
Is true love just once in a lifetime?"_ Kitty hadn't thought it was possible for Ryder's gaze to be any more intense, but the way he looked at Marley made her feel like she was watching some sort of tragic romance movie instead of a Glee club rehearsal. Even though she didn't totally hate Ryder – or Marley, for that matter – it still made her want to barf a little bit. The look in his eyes was the sort of sickening adoration that Kitty had always secretly wished she would receive from Jake.

"_Did the captain of the Titanic cry?  
__Oh, someday we'll know." _Their voices blended together as the chorus began.

"_If love can move a mountain_," Marley continued.

"_Someday we'll know,"_ the duo sang as Ryder easily joined back in.

"_Why the sky is blue,"_ the brunette boy crooned.

"_Someday we'll know, why I wasn't meant for you…"_Marley stepped around to the back of the piano as the two sang the last line together, putting space between them that Ryder had been slowly erasing as they sang together.

"_Does anybody know the way to Atlantis_," she asked, dancing out of reach as Ryder moved closer to her again.

"_Or what the wind says when she cries_," Ryder sang, backing away from Marley again. The brunette's eyes didn't miss a single move that the football player made.

"_I'm speeding by the place that I met you," _Marley responded, and a look of longing briefly crossed her face. Kitty wondered if anyone else noticed it. Jake, who had been looking darkly at Ryder the entire song, seemed to have missed whatever had fluttered over Marley's features.

_"__ For the ninety-seventh time...Tonight," _Ryder and Marley's voiced joined together again, and almost involuntarily their hands reached out towards each other. However, they were too far away to touch, and Ryder was the one that seemed to move away from Marley this time as they began the chorus again.__

"Someday we'll know," they continued together.

"_Why Samson loved Delilah?" _Ryder seemed to be searching Marley's eyes as they circled the piano – ugh, it was the cheesy move Puck had said Finn used to do with Rachel, Kitty thought to herself.

"_One day I'll go,_" he continued as Marley's voice joined his.

"_Dancing on the moon_," she said, letting Ryder twirl him around her as she sang the line alone.

"_Someday you'll know  
That I was the one for you..._" They ended the song together, and Kitty felt the room fall into a stunned sort of silence as Marley and Ryder stared into each other's eyes. She swore it looked like they were about to start spontaneously making out any second, and she dared a glimpse at Jake again. However, he glared at Ryder only, seeming to have no reaction to the look on Marley's face.

"Guys! That was fantastic," Mr. Schuester exclaimed, and the whole club took that as their cue to unleash their applause.

"Unique is so proud of her girl!"

"I couldn't have done it better myself," Blaine admitted.

"They've still got it! Told you I made the right casting calls," Artie said proudly. Only Jake had anything negative to say.

"They've got no chemistry – we'll never win with such a one sided pairing. Am I the only one who noticed that Marley wasn't in to singing with him at all?" Jake insisted.

"Oh please, Puckerman. I feel like I just watched the musical foreplay for the porno version of High School Musical," Kitty shot back. Her heart raced as he shot her a death glare. Marley was also looking right at Jake with a pleading look.

"Agreed. Although they don't look like the actors who starred in that version," Brittany said, and Sam shook his head at his girlfriend to indicate that she shouldn't reveal to the club that she had watched such things.

"Well, then, I think that's settled! Marley and Ryder will do our duet for Regionals," Mr. Schuester said, putting his arms around the pair and clapping them each on the back. Ryder, however, had stopped smiling the longer he had looked at Marley's apologetic face.

"Actually, Mr. Schue, I think Jake's right. He should sing the duet with Marley. I'm not the right guy for the job," Ryder said. Mr. Schuester's smile faltered a bit.

"But Ryder – the club needs you," he protested.

"I – er – I just don't have enough time to rehearse a Regionals winning number. I've got a lot of appointment's and stuff coming up that might make me miss practice. Sorry," Ryder mumbled as the bell rang. "But I'm sure Jake'll be great. He and Marley are really good together." The boy grabbed his things and headed out of the choir room, leaving a smirking Jake and an otherwise shocked club.


	6. Chapter 6

**I'll Be Coming Home, Wait For Me**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee or any songs or other trademarked/copyrighted things that I may mention in this story.

**Chapter 6**

Kitty caught up with Ryder after school, where she again found him on the bleachers of the football stadium. She thought she could hear him humming to himself, but she announced her arrival by saying "a-hem" in her usual superior tone. She didn't want to hear him pouring his heart out in song again; it was a little bit depressing to hear how down he was.

"So what was that all about?" Kitty demanded when Ryder looked up to meet her. "You guys were practically making out through song lyrics, and then suddenly you bail? Are you stupid?" Ryder shrugged, looking a little bit dejected.

"You saw her reaction to Jake. She seemed a lot more caught up in how he would feel about us singing together than she was in anything else," Ryder pointed out.

"You're so full of crap. She looked a little bit confused, sure, but that's just sort of her default dopey look," Kitty argued.

"She doesn't want me, okay? I can't keep clinging to her and hoping she'll change her mind. She's had her time and her space, and you know what, Kitty? She went back to Jake." Ryder seemed pretty adamant about his stance, but Kitty was never one to back down. She was Kitty Wilde, after all – she was pretty much right about everything.

"If you're so sure that they're back together, then why didn't Jake look at her once during your little performance? Why was he just staring at you?" Ryder blanched in confusion.

"Dude, it's not like that," Ryder said. "We're just bros." Kitty arched her eyebrows at him.

"Are you sure you're dyslexic and not just dumb? I don't mean home boy wanted to go all Lady Hummel on you. Why would he, when he has a chance at me?" Kitty shoved him playfully. "I mean he wasn't really worried about what Marley was doing. His whole focus was just on being pissed at you. It was more about his Puckerman pride than anything to do with Marley."

"So what? He doesn't need to be pissed off at Marley when it's obvious that she's chosen him. He got the girl; he was always going to get the girl. God, why am I such an idiot?"

"I'm going to take a wild guess that you were an idiot long before you ever met Marley," the cheerleader said, idly twirling her curled ponytail. "But this is the first time I've ever felt like an idiot in my life, so I guess I have to sympathize with you a little bit. I don't like watching Puckerman fight for her, you know – even if I'm still not convinced he's fighting _for _her," Kitty added, thinking about the twice-over Jake had given Kitty herself when she had walked out of the locker room this morning.

"She told me she was thinking about kissing me when Jake was doing this super romantic thing for her one day. She can't be thinking about me too much anymore if she's barely said a word to me since, though," Ryder scoffed. Kitty arched her eyebrows again.

"This is news to me, you floppy-haired freak. Why didn't you mention that juicy piece of information before?"

"Because it doesn't matter, Kitty. Like – I finally get it. Even if this isn't a romantic thing anymore, she still has to choose to try to keep being friends with one of us. And she picked Jake. I just need to stop waiting around and hoping that, once things are cooled off enough between them, she'll come back to me," Ryder said.

"You're a little bit pathetic, you know," Kitty pointed out.

"At least I didn't offer to do something I would regret just to try to win a guy back from another girl," Ryder grumbled, and instantly he looked like he felt bad. He searched Kitty's face to make sure he hadn't crossed a line, but the blonde's face remained impassive.

"No, instead you did something you regret, and now you're moping around whining about how Marley doesn't even want to be your friend," she pointed out. "If it were me, I'd stay in the game. I'd talk to her whether she wanted me to or not. But you just don't have the attitude to pull this off."

"Can you do me a favor?" Ryder demanded suddenly.

"Stop being a bitch? Never," she stated simply, and he couldn't help but laugh.

"I know not to ask for miracles. No, can you just keep an eye on Marley? I mean – I know you're sort of the one who enabled her to be all bulimic and stuff before, but this is your chance to make up for being a huge suckbag," Ryder began, with only a slight hint of pleading in his voice.

"Cut to the chase before I tell everyone that you have three nipples just like Puckerman," Kitty said, seeming bored.

"She's just – you know, I'm not totally convinced that she's over the whole throwing up thing. She gets all down on herself, and I try to look out for her and see if there's anything suspicious, but if I'm not gonna be hanging out with her, it's sorta hard to make sure she's okay," Ryder said. Kitty tapped her foot.

"You're still beating around the bush more than a broken weedwacker operated by a blind man," she insisted. "What do you want me to do, go all psycho-stalker on her everytime she gets within ten feet of a toilet?"

"Well – yeah, kind of," Ryder admitted sheepishly. "Girls love to go to the bathroom in packs, right? I don't really get why, but I hear it's just like a thing you do. So as much as you can get away with it, just make sure she's not hurting herself. She's still all sad and stuff everytime I see her, you know?"

"I can't decide if this is mock-worthily pathetic, straight up creepy, or romantic in a Ted Mosby kind of loser way. Fortunately, all three of those things should entertain me for at least like three weeks, so I'll do my best to follow Barbie Barfalot around," Kitty agreed.

"Seriously? And you'll let me know if anything's wrong?" Ryder persisted, and she clapped a hand onto his shoulder.

"Relax. I'll do your dirty work for you," Kitty assured him. "This is what I do best. Covert operations are totally my style. I still think you're being an idiot, though – you just roped me in by giving me something fun to do."

"I'm not being an idiot, Kitty. She didn't look comfortable singing that duet with me," Ryder insisted.

"Yeah, because she _wants_ you," the blonde reiterated, but she continued speaking before Ryder could object. "But I don't even mean that part. Just giving up a chance to do the solo at Regionals was _dumb_. Do you know how awesome it is to be the one in the spotlight? To have bragging rights that you helped the club win?"

"I'm not that great," he said, pushing his hair to the side. Kitty leaned forward and ruffled it so that it fell messily across his forehead.

"What was that for?" he grumbled, and Kitty let out a rare laugh.

"It makes my eyes feel like they're burning to talk to you when you have the Bieber hair going on," she said, shrugging. "But that's beside the point. You're screwing everyone else in the club over by giving that solo to Jake. He sounds like an autotuned Fresh Prince of Belair, and he and Marley have all the chemistry of a pool noodle that someone forgot to take out of the chlorine."

"I think you're exaggerating maybe a little bit," he said, pushing his hair back to Justin Bieber form. "Jake's a good singer. Plus, she's in to him, so it'll – "

"Sweet Baby Jesus, will you stop saying that? You told me like 10 minutes ago how she was daydreaming about _you _when she was with Puckerman. And I have eyes, I saw you guys singing that sappy love song earlier. I saw the way you guys looked at each other when you were Danny and Sandy. There's a reason _you_ were the one they cast alongside Marley, you moron. So maybe she thinks she's in to Jake, but she's in to you too. So get off your mom-jeans clad butt and either do something about it or don't, but don't play the pity card."

"Kitty, I just don't want to hear it anymore. I get my hopes up, and then I just get crapped all over by life. I just – don't let me get my hopes up again, okay?" he pleaded.

"Fine. Give up then. Just forget you ever cared about her and start going on dates with other girls. Is that what you want to do?" Kitty demanded.

"Well, no – I still ignored your stupid online dating idea."

"No you didn't," Kitty said mysteriously.

"What do you mean, no I didn't?" He stared at her blankly as she pulled out her smartphone.

"I mean meet Ryder Lynn, internet hottie. I just had to snap a couple of shots of you shirtless in the locker room and leave out some of your more embarrassing tendencies, like sleeping with Superman sheets." She held up an online dating profile that in fact had Ryder's name and his face on it.

"How did you know – " Ryder began, and Kitty cut him off with "When are you going to realize that I know _everything_?"

"You have officially reached a new level of crazy," he said, staring at the phone with interest.

"Go ahead, take it – there are a surprisingly large amount of girls in this world that seem to find your oddly perky man-nipples sexy." Kitty pushed the phone towards him, but he shook his head.

"I don't want it, Kitty," he insisted, but she scoffed.

"Oh, please. A few barely-sassy comments from Puckerman earlier sent you scurrying from the choir room. I guarantee you that the next time you see him and Little Miss Sunshine chatting, you'll wish you had the login info for this. Good thing I've got you covered," she said, grabbing his math book and writing the information on the front page in pen.

"You'll have a hard time throwing that away," she smirked, pushing the book back in his direction. "Just let me know when you do finally log on – I don't want you to pick some of the weirdos that have been messaging you. They've got _Catfish_ written all over them."

"What's _Catfish_?" Ryder asked curiously.

"I swear, you live under a rock that's under a volcano in a cave blocked off from the world by a group of angry grizzly bears," Kitty said, shaking her head in mock-disgust. "I'll see you tomorrow. Let me know what you think of the one named Angie, by the way – she seems like she might be up your alley," she added as she flounced away.

"She always does that," Ryder muttered as the blonde abruptly disappeared. He flipped open his math book, looked at the username Kitty had made for him – _RydinDirty_, he was sure to attract lots of class acts with that name – and password: _Marleydoesntknowwhatshesmiss ing_. He briefly wished that Kitty had made the password shorter; he wasn't sure he could remember what letter he had just typed. Then he quickly shook off that thought; he was never going to use the profile, so what was the point in having such thoughts?

However, the next day in Glee, Mr. Schue insisted that Jake and Marley try out the duet. They had barely made it through the first three lines when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He and Kitty were in the back row, so he snuck a look at the message, which happened to be from the snarky cheerleader.

_Time to use that logon info? I already downloaded the app onto your phone_, the message read. Ryder rolled his eyes, mouthed "You're crazy" to her, but clicked on the app anyway. Checking out some of these people had to be better than watching Jake wrap his arms around Marley as he sang.

His phone buzzed again, and a message flashed across the loading application. _Just remember to be careful of Catfish_. Kitty again. Ryder whispered to her, "I read that Wikipedia article last night. I'm not that stupid!" Kitty muttered back, "You wish. Remember to read the message from Angie first," before turning away and playing something on her own phone. _I guess she doesn't really want to watch, either_, he thought sympathetically as he typed in his login information for the first time.


	7. Chapter 7

**I'll Be Coming Home, Wait For Me**

**Author's Note: **So, it's starting to look like this is going to be 12 chapters now instead of 11 – but either way, we're entering into the back half of the story! I have a lot of work to do this upcoming week, which means a lot of sitting at my computer and thus hopefully a lot of quick updates!

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee or any songs or other trademarked/copyrighted things that I may mention in this story.

**Chapter 7**

Marley Rose banged her head against the bathroom mirror in frustration. It was a Friday afternoon after glee club practice, and she couldn't remember the last time she had been so grateful for a weekend. She took a look at her reflection in the mirror, and she had to blink her eyes to be sure she was seeing herself correctly.

There were bags under her eyes from losing sleep, and she could swear there were lines starting to form on her face from frowning so much. Her hair was looking dull and stringy, partially from apathy and probably partially from the fact that she hadn't been eating very much. She ate enough at home to keep her mom from worrying about her, but to be totally honest, she was too stressed to have much of an appetite. So far, she had only thrown up a couple of times – right after Jake had punched Ryder, and the day when Jake had made Ryder feel so uncomfortable that he had backed out of the Regionals duet. Marley sighed and turned on the water tap to wash her face. If only washing away her troubles was as simple…

Nothing was going right. She had thought by now that she would have figured everything out, but things were just getting more and more confusing. She had agreed to take space from both boys to sort everything out, but she felt no closer to knowing what – or who – she wanted. She had worked on saving some sort of relationship with Jake first, knowing that his temper would run wild if she tried to make amends with Ryder first. As far as Jake went, though, Marley still had no idea what they were. She didn't know if they were dating or not dating, and part of her was grateful for that, because she honestly didn't know if she wanted to be dating him or not. She knew that she still wanted him in her life, though, and in order to do that, she had had to continue freezing Ryder out.

And then there was Ryder. Marley pretty much hadn't spoken to him at all in the weeks since the kiss, and she missed him terribly. Yeah, it was great that she had her friendship with Jake intact, at least, but it wasn't the same as having her goofy best friend there to make her smile at every turn. Unique had tried to pick up the slack, but it just wasn't the same.

There had been several occasions when she had wanted to talk to Ryder, but she always lost her nerve. He was treating her as though she was a total stranger; his head was always bowed down when he sat near her, and he avoided making eye contact in the halls. Maybe he had realized he was finally mad at her for leading him on. Maybe he was afraid of screwing things up for her again. Whatever it was, Marley didn't like it.

She also didn't like his newfound friendship with Kitty – at all. It seemed like she never saw one without the other these days, and there was way too much smiling and laughing for her taste. Ryder had never really liked Kitty before; he had frequently called her out for how horrible she was to Marley. Had Ryder, like Jake before him, decided that he'd much rather date Kitty than her? Was that what was happening?

She didn't want to believe it – she still _felt_ their connectionwhen they sang together – but based on how fast Ryder had been to get out of singing with her, she was starting to think maybe it wasn't so crazy to assume there was something going with her blonde frenemy.

She just wished she could talk to Ryder for herself without feeling like Jake was going to start throwing punches again. She had been trying to subtly hint that Jake should talk to Ryder and try to sort things out, but the younger Puckerman was having none of it, and she was afraid to push the issue too far lest he decide he was angry at Marley again.

She still felt nauseous every time she thought about Jake and Ryder's faces after the first time Mr. Schue had asked her to sing "Someday We'll Know." She and Ryder had been so caught up in the moment; he had looked at her the way he used to, before everything went to hell, and she hadn't been able to tear her eyes away from him. Then Jake had butted in, and glared at Ryder in that way he did that showed he still wanted to kick his ass, and Marley had felt so helpless. Even worse was the crushed look on Ryder's face when he had told Mr. Schuester that he didn't have what it took to do the duet; Marley had desperately wanted to run after him and tell him how much she liked singing with him, but Jake had instantly gravitated towards her and started talking about what they could do differently when they sang the duet instead.

As for the duet, well – it was a total disaster. Jake had insisted that she and Ryder had no chemistry, but she was fairly certain it was the other way around. After that first performance with Ryder, she had felt confident – like Regionals was in the bag. Every time she sang with Jake, though, it just felt off. Maybe it was just because that first performance with Ryder had been so perfect, and she was constantly comparing the two versions. She knew Jake was also extremely talented, but something wasn't right. They had gotten together after school one day to try a couple of different songs instead, but neither of those had felt right, either. Marley was starting to feel like her own personal drama was about to cause New Directions to lose another competition, and that wasn't a pleasant thought, either.

Marley felt sick just thinking about everything, and she made a sudden move for the bathroom stall. She had been alone on this end of McKinley when she had ducked into the ladies room, and there usually weren't many other students lurking around this long after the final bell had gone off for the day, anyway.

Just as Marley had ducked to her knees, though, the door banged open.

"Honey Boo Boo? You still in here?" the voice of Kitty Wilde demanded. "I've been waiting for your skinny ass to come out of here for ages!" Marley immediately leapt to her feet, praying Kitty wouldn't notice.

Unfortunately, it was Kitty – the girl noticed everything.

"You're not puking your brains out again, are you? I thought we had this discussion – you're actually a total babe, and I was just jealous of you because you were getting attention from the hot guy that I wanted. And all the singing parts. And basically everything that the underdog only gets in movies but that the rockin' cheerleader usually gets in real life," Kitty pointed out. Marley looked at her miserably.

"I don't feel like I'm the girl who's got everything right now," she insisted, trying to head towards the door. Kitty cut her off.

"You're not leaving that easily. One of your boy toys happens to be all worried that you're going to stress yourself out and go back to being bulimic, so you have to promise me that's not what I just walked in on. Promise me you just ate some smelly tuna for lunch or something – actually, scratch that, all tuna smells like a Puckerman's dirty gym sock. Maybe you ate some smelly watermelon or something," Kitty corrected herself.

"I don't have any boy toys. I don't know what I have anymore. Definitely not control over my own life, that's for sure," the brunette admitted.

"Oh, please. You can totally have control over your own life – you've just gotta grab life by the horns and ride it like that mechanical bull they have at the seedy gay bar on the outskirts of town," Kitty interjected. "So spill, Princess Pukealot. Were you about to hurl so that you could feel like you have control of what's going on?"

"Of course not!" Marley said defensively, and Kitty shook her head.

"I'm a Cheerio. I'm captain of McKinley's 'Eating Disorders R Us' squad. Do you really think I don't see through your crap?" the cheerleader demanded. "Look, I know I encouraged it before. I'm a bitch. Why on earth did you ever take me seriously?"

"Stop, Kitty! Just stop! You don't have to deal with any of this. You just know what you want, and you go get it, and everything is just fine. Why don't you go run off and tell Jake to stop having you tail me?" Marley demanded, and Kitty actually laughed out loud.

"Jake? Oh please, you think Jake knows you that well? Knows either one of us that well? Oh, no, honey. Jake has no idea that either one of us would ever do something like this to ourselves." She rolled her eyes.

"Then – Ryder?" Marley asked, feeling herself cheer up just a tiny bit. He may not be talking to her, but he hadn't totally forgotten about her.

"No shit, Sherlock. We're talking about the boy who remembered what _flower_ you like. The boy who remembers that you're weird enough to think 'The Hunger Games' is romantic. The boy who embarrasses himself in front of large crowds of people by talking in a pirate voice that only you think is funny just because it makes you smile every time. Did you really think he would stop caring about you just because you're waving Puckerman in front of his face like he's your wand and you just found out you're Harry Potter?" Kitty huffed indignantly.

"Kitty – please, you can't tell him. I don't… He can't know, okay?" Marley begged. Kitty narrowed her eyes at the other girl.

"If you're not doing this as a cry for attention, then why are you shoving your head down the porcelain bucket, then?" Kitty inquired.

"I just – this whole thing with Jake stresses me out, okay? I'm never sure when he's going to decide he just wants to kick me to the curb. When he's going to decide that I'm not worth having in his life anymore," she admitted, staring down at her knuckles.

"Wait, really? But Jake's the one you're talking to – he's putting up fights for you in the middle of Glee club. You're really worried about not being good enough for him?" Kitty seemed legitimately taken aback; she knew that this was how she herself felt around Jake, but with the way the boy had doted on Marley these past few months, she didn't understand how the brunette could also feel that way.

"I've liked him for months, okay? And he really didn't want me at first. So now that he does – or did – it just freaks me out. What if he realizes that he was right in the first place? What if he just abandons me completely?" Kitty shrugged.

"Yeah, he does that," she reminisced. "So this is all about Three Nipples? You're really just done with Ryder?" Kitty was shocked to think that her guesses about Marley's feelings were so off, but then the brunette opened her mouth again.

"Ryder's not like Jake. He would never just get rid of me because something hotter and more exciting comes along. At least…I didn't think he was like that," she muttered, seeming like she was talking more to herself than to Kitty. "But – are you guys, like, together?" she wondered aloud.

Again, Kitty laughed out loud. "Me and Bieber hair? No thanks! You can keep him."

"But – every time I see one of you, the other is there. I mean – I kind of took Jake away from you. I wasn't sure if you thought it was your right to do the same thing back to me by taking Ryder away," Marley said, and then instantly covered her mouth.

"It's okay, Boo Boo, you don't have to act like you're horrified by what you just said. That's the kind of thing I would normally do, if Superman Sheets didn't simultaneously suck and not suck so much at the same time." Kitty shrugged, and Marley stared at her, expecting more of an explanation.

"What I mean is, he's not my type. But he really is kind of a nice guy. He doesn't treat me like I just rode out of hell on a fire-friendly jetski. He's got my back, and I've got his." Kitty was just waiting to drop the bombshell on Marley, waiting to see if she could get a reaction.

"Plus, I'm helping him try to get over you – no, not like that!" Kitty said when Marley's eyes widened in horror. "He sees that you've picked Jake, so I set up an online dating account for him. Told him he needs to try to meet some other girls. He refused to use it for a long time, but then he figured out he could change the overtly sexual username that I gave him, so he's actually given it a try." The blonde seemed amused by her own antics, but Marley's eyes had only grown larger. She was trying to keep her face neutral, but Marley was never one for having a pokerface.

"Online dating? Isn't that dangerous?" the brunette protested. There was very little conviction in her voice, though; Kitty was pretty sure she was just making excuses for why Ryder shouldn't be exploring his options.

"That's why he's got me around. I'm pretty good at sniffing out the total sketchsters," she said proudly. "Kitty Wilde, deflecting creeps since the day I fought my way out of my mother's womb."

"That's weird," Marley said instantly, and Kitty shrugged nonchalantly once more. She turned to go, but Marley seemed like she had something else she wanted to ask.

"Are you going to spit it out already?" Kitty demanded.

"Um – has he – you know, met anyone yet?" Marley asked shyly.

"You promise you're not going to go stick your head down that toilet if I give you an honest answer?" the cheerleader snapped.

"I swear," Marley said, raising her hands to show that she wasn't crossing her fingers or doing any of the things that Kitty normally would have done in a situation like this.

"He's going on his first date this weekend. Ta-ta!" And with that, Kitty gathered her backpack and left Marley standing in the bathroom, staring after her in shock.


	8. Chapter 8

**I'll Be Coming Home, Wait For Me**

**Author's Note: **I just wanted to thank all of you guys for being so awesome and for giving me such wonderful reviews! And for those of you who are worried that it seems like Marley and Ryder are never going to get together… Don't worry! This is the chapter where things really start to shift.

Also, I apologize for the delay on posting this chapter – I have been swamped with essays to grade and student comments to write this week!

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Glee or any songs or other trademarked/copyrighted things that I may mention in this story.

**Chapter 8**

It was Saturday evening, and up until the past few weeks, Marley had always had plans with either Jake or Ryder. Since their falling out, she usually had just stayed home and watched movies with her mom the way she did when she was younger, but this weekend she knew she needed to not just sit at home. She had been thinking about the fact that Ryder was going out on a date with some new girl this weekend ever since Kitty had mentioned it just over 24 hours prior, and she hated that she couldn't get her mind off of it. She knew it would be mortifying to have to ask Kitty for more details, so instead of sitting at home letting her imagination go crazy, she had made plans with Unique.

Marley slid into a seat across from her friend at Breadstix, and forced the brightest smile she could muster onto her face. She hoped that it would be enough to convince Unique that she was okay.

"Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes – I forgot what it was like for you to have your Saturday night open," Unique teased her, passing a menu across the table. It was already opened to the pasta page; Unique knew all too well that Marley would linger on the salad page if she was left to her own devices.

"You look like you haven't eaten a decent meal since Valentine's Day, so I figured I'd help you find the right page," her friend added with a wink, noticing Marley's raised eyebrows.

"I've just had a lot on my mind," Marley muttered, trying to ignore the calories listed next to each pasta dish. She had promised Kitty that she wouldn't let herself stress out about her weight, but her friendship with Jake was still so tentative that the thought of a large plate of pasta made her feel a little bit queasy.

"Sweetie, what is there to worry about now? You and Jake seem to be getting along again, and Ryder's gotten his big head out of the way so that he can stop screwing things up for you with your boy. I know things aren't totally back to normal, but it seems like it's headed the right direction," Unique asserted. Marley's smile faltered; she hadn't admitted to her friend how uncertain she was really feeling.

"Uh oh. I saw that. What am I missing?" her sharp friend responded. Marley sighed.

"I wanted to have a night to kind of get all of this off of my mind," Marley said evasively. "I'm okay, really." Unique looked like she was about to protest, but then acknowledged that she had been dismissed.

"You're not going to get off that easily, girl, but I'll give you a break for now if you're not in the mood to talk about it," Unique said. "Instead, we can talk about how you're going to wipe the floor with our competition at Regionals!"

"No offense, but… I don't really want to talk about that either," Marley admitted. "I'm not sure how I really feel about dueting with Jake. It just…I don't know, I felt a lot more comfortable the first time I did the song with Ryder."

"Uh huh… Now I'm really just waiting until you spill what's going on. I've noticed you talking to Blondie a lot, but surprisingly she hasn't unleashed any of your secrets yet. That must be a first," she said, and Marley couldn't help but chuckle.

Their waiter arrived to take their order, and Unique and Marley fell into easy conversation that managed to avoid the topics of Jake and Ryder. Unique talked about a trip her parents were planning for Spring Break, and gushed about how she was going to _finally_ see the Lion King on Broadway while they were aware. That provided a natural segue into Disney movies, which both girls could talk about for hours. Their food arrived during a heated debate about which Glee girl would be which Disney princess.

"No way – Brittany would totally be Sleeping Beauty. I don't know anyone else who would fall for the enchanted needle thing!" Unique protested when Marley insisted that of all the girls in Glee club, Brittany was most likely to be Cinderella.

"But she's got the whole 'talks to animals as if they're humans' thing going on! Although I suppose the animals in Cinderella aren't drug addicts like Lord Tubbington," she admitted with a laugh.

"What about Tina?" Unique asked. "We still haven't figured out what Princess she would be, since you shot down my Mulan idea."

"We can't just say she's Mulan because she's Asian!" Marley insisted.

"And I'm telling you it has nothing to do with her being Asian. She is a strong woman who does what it takes to get stuff done," Unique protested, but Marley was no longer looking at her friend. During her explanation of why Tina should in fact be Mulan, the smaller brunette had caught sight of a familiar male face walking through the door, accompanied by a pretty black-haired girl. He didn't seem to notice her – he was busy listening to what his _date_ was saying – but Marley was glad, because her face must have gone pale. She hadn't been able to get Ryder out of her mind for over a month, and here he was in front of her with someone else.

A part of Marley had hoped that Kitty was making the whole thing up, but living proof was now in front of her. Unique finally realized that Marley wasn't paying attention to what she was saying, and her dark eyes followed Marley's gaze to Ryder.

"Do you really still feel that awkward around him?" Unique asked just as the raven-haired girl entered her line of sight as well. "Oh…" She added knowingly when she had absorbed the other face as well.

"Well then. I think I see why you didn't want to talk about it." Marley stared down at her food, feeling her face go red. "Girl, all this time I thought you were just mad at Ryder for screwing things up with you and Jake. I've been freezing him out, too, because I thought he had hurt you. I had no idea that… Well." For the first time since Marley had met her, Unique seemed to be at a loss for words.

"It's fine. I'm fine," Marley insisted again, knowing that she didn't sound convincing at all. "I just… I know he'll always be there for me when I'm ready. As a friend. I guess I just – I never really thought about this happening. Kitty warned me, but I still just…" Marley's voice trailed off, and Unique filled in the gaps for her.

"But Kitty loves to make stuff up just to stir the pot," she supplied, and Marley nodded. "Girl, as much as I've been mad at Ryder on your behalf…Have you even talked to him?" Marley shook her head, her eyes never leaving the couple that had settled across the room from them. Ryder still hadn't noticed them, and she tried to shrink into her seat and hide.

"No. No, I've been trying to focus on figuring out stuff with Jake – " Marley began, and Unique cut her off.

"No offense, but _why_? I tried to ignore the way you stared at Ryder during that duet you guys did; I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt that it was a fluke. But – I don't know, I've seen how you reacted when Jake was with other girls before you two got together. It was nothing like that face I saw when Ryder and Santana 2.0 walked in," Unique said. Marley ignored the question, and said softly, "She does look a lot like Santana, doesn't she? She's beautiful."

"Hey, hey, hey. Stop before you even get started. You're beautiful too, and that boy has been crazy about you for ages. But – well, you've been sending him mixed signals. You've spent the past couple of weeks talking to Jake at every turn, and apparently you're still ignoring him. If I were him, I would think it was pretty clear you had made your choice," Unique said.

"But I haven't. Jake and I aren't together," Marley said softly. "I just… I want to still be friend with both of them, okay? And I feel like I kind of have to let Jake down easy, and focus on showing him how important it is to have him in my life. Otherwise – well, he holds grudges. And I'm not that special; if I make him mad, he doesn't really have any reason to come back and stand by me." Marley picked at her food, now feeling thoroughly miserable. She was now face to face with exactly what she had been trying to avoid.

"Marley, slow down. Jake's crazy about you, too, but you can't base your whole life off of whether or not he's going to get mad at you if you don't really want to be with him!"

"I mean… I was kind of hoping he would realize he doesn't want to be with me first. If he thinks it's his decision, then he'll try to stay my friend. If he thinks it's mine…" Unique rolled her eyes a little bit.

"You've got some backwards logic in that pretty little head of yours," she said matter-of-factly. "What do you say we grab you a to-go box and you can come sleep over at my house? We'll watch lots of girl-power movies, and if you want to talk about it, you can talk about it. If you don't want to talk about it, well – it's still better than letting you sit here and stare at Ryder on his date." Marley nodded in agreement as Unique flagged down a waiter to ask for take-out boxes. Unfortunately, that was exactly when Ryder looked over and met their eyes. He gave a small smile and waved in their direction, but looked as though he, too, felt uncomfortable and had no idea what to do.

"Well, that makes it a little bit harder to not talk to him. He is kind of sitting right by the door," Unique said, looking sheepish. "I'll do the talking if you want," she offered.

Their boxes and their change came, and Marley and Unique stood to go. The universe had mercy on Marley, who realized that Ryder's date was at least in the bathroom as they walked towards the door.

"Hey guys. How's it going?" Ryder tried to sound casual when they stopped briefly to say hello.

"Great! Just having a girl's night," Marley said, forcing herself to sound enthusiastic. "We've got a date with some Disney movies," she added, and instantly wished she could clamp her hand over her mouth. _A date with Disney movies?! He's here with some gorgeous girl on a _real_ date, and I'm on a date with Disney movies?_ She felt disgusted with herself, but Ryder just laughed.

"Just promise that if you watch _Tangled_ you won't start thinking it's okay to call me _Flynn Ryder_. Some girls at my old school tried to do that, but they're way out of line. I'm obviously more like Simba," he supplied, and Marley was grateful for the way he smoothed over her stupid statement. But then again, this was _Ryder_ – she could always talk to him about things like kid movies. Jake was the one she was worried would think those things were uncool.

"Simba? Seriously? All these handsome princes you could be, and you choose to be a cowardly lion?" Unique had entered the conversation now, and Marley felt grateful for her friend. Hopefully she would prevent Marley from saying anything else stupid.

"Cowardly? No way! Dude knows how to give people space when they need it, but he always comes back to take care of the things that matter to him," Ryder protested vehemently, and Marley couldn't help but let a real smile make its way onto her face. Even after she had ignored him for a month, this was a normal conversation. Ryder was as goofy and open as always.

Unfortunately, the bathroom door across the restaurant swung open, and the black-haired girl emerged.

"Well, we should let you get back to your date," Marley said, feeling jealousy creep into her voice as she nodded toward the girl who was headed back their way. "Have a good time."

"With Angie? She's not…" he began, but Marley and Unique had already turned to go. Whatever the girl was not, Marley would never get to find out. She needed to get away so that she could kick herself for the fact that, if she hadn't listened to Kitty four months ago, that could have been her on a date with Ryder instead.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: **I own pretty much nothing in the world except for clothes and a puppy, so I definitely don't own Glee or anything related to it. Anything I mention in this chapter is probably copyrighted by somebody else, so the credit goes to them.

**Chapter 9**

Jake Puckerman sunk into his chair on the McKinley High stage. It was a Friday afternoon, and he and Marley had been having increasingly unsuccessful duet rehearsals all week. Frustrated, he rested his hand on his chin and turned to Marley, who had curled her knees up to her chest in the chair next to him.

"Okay, so, I hate to admit this, but – we sort of suck," Jake said, trying to meet her eyes. She was looking down at her feet.

"It's not you," Marley said quietly, and Jake barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Typical Marley, always blaming herself for stuff.

"Dude, it's not you. I mean, sure, you've seemed kind of weird this week," Jake said, looking at her expectantly. She still stared at her knees as if the denim adorning them was the most fascinating thing in the world, and he didn't try to press the issue. Marley had always been the kind of girl to say what she was thinking, and if she wasn't readily offering information, pressing her for it wasn't going to get him anywhere.

When Marley remained silent, Jake continued. "As much as I hate to admit it, I think the problem's me. You sounded wicked awesome when you sang this with Ryder." Maybe it was Jake's imagination, but he thought he saw Marley hug her knees a little bit tighter.

Neither one of them had really dared to mention Ryder in the weeks since Valentine's Day. In fact, Jake and Marley avoided serious conversations in general. Jake knew that he should try to redefine their relationship, but part of him didn't care. Marley was talking to him, and she didn't seem to be talking to Ryder. As far as he was concerned, he wasn't really in a hurry to claim Marley as his girlfriend again. He had forgotten that it could be pretty fun just to chill with her without all the pressure of impressing her and showering her with love and affection. She still wanted him to be a part of her life, obviously, so he was down with that for the time being.

"Yeah, well, I doubt we'd sound good on it now," Marley responded, and Jake raised an eyebrow at her.

"Are you going to keep being all vague, or are you going to tell me what that means?" he asked, torn between sighing and laughing.

"It's nothing. It doesn't matter," Marley said automatically, and Jake turned to face her. He knew that flat, emotionless voice meant that something was seriously bothering her. He had only heard her sound that way twice before: once just before their Sectionals competition, and again when she was stressing out about Ryder kissing her.

"Did he do something to hurt you? Because I swear, he can't be a dick to you when he's the one who kissed another guy's girlfriend and started this whole mess in the first place," Jake said protectively. He had always felt the need to look after her, and it didn't hurt that he was still sort of pissed at Ryder anyway.

"No, no. He didn't do anything. I just – I ran into him on a date with another girl last weekend, and it was really awkward. I know that I can't expect both of you to just sit around and wait for me forever, but I guess I just wasn't ready to see that," Marley admitted. She teetered on the edge of her seat as if there was more she wanted to say, but she bit her lip instead.

"Are you mad at me?" she asked after a few seconds of silence.

Jake blanched a bit. He was never sure why her instant reaction to confessing her feelings was always to ask if Jake was upset with her, but he didn't want to waste time pondering it. Instead, he blurted out the first question that had come to mind.

"Was she hot?" Marley's eyes shot up to meet his, and for a second he was afraid that he had kind of pissed her off. Instead, though, he saw that she was resisting the urge to chuckle.

"Yeah, she was pretty hot. Like a clone of Santana," Marley said, rolling her eyes at Jake. "Are you going to go make an online dating profile so that you can ogle her too?"

"Nah – may fight him for her, though. Just to let him see how it feels," Jake said, mostly joking, and Marley bumped her shoulder into his playfully.

"You're ridiculous," she said with a straight-face. Jake hated to interrupt the moment of goofiness – it had been surprisingly cheerful considering Marley's recent mood – but he couldn't resist the urge to ask.

"Have you talked to him?" Marley shook her head fervently.

"Have you?" she inquired. Jake shook his head.

"Nah. Haven't had any reason to. Didn't want to end up using his head as a punching bag again. Why haven't you, though? I thought you told me that you didn't think you could freeze him out," Jake pointed out.

"I guess – I just didn't want to make you madder," Marley admitted, shrugging. "I'm just so surprised that you even still want to talk to me, and I guess I was scared to screw that up." Jake tried not to let his thoughts show on his face, but he couldn't help but feel like that was a pretty stupid reason to not be talking to Ryder. Jake had been intermittently pissed off at Ryder for months as they had both struggled for Marley's affections, and that hadn't stopped her from talking to him at first. She was obviously miserable without having Ryder in her life, too – he wasn't sure exactly _why_ she missed Ryder so much, but it was clear that she did. He made a mental note to try to start being friendly to Ryder again so that Marley would perhaps start talking to him again. Maybe then she would perk up a little bit.

"Well, time to stop worrying about me. There are only two things you could possibly do to make me mad in the near future," he said, keeping his voice playful.

"Oh? And what's that?" Marley said. Jake felt a little bit sick when he heard how nervous she sounded; he had hoped that joking around with her would make her realize how ridiculous her notion that he would get mad at her was.

"Well, number one, you're going to let me tell Mr. Schue and Ryder that I shouldn't be the one doing the duet with you after all," Jake said, and Marley's eyes grew wide at his statement.

"Seriously? But Jake, you've worked so hard for this duet!" Marley insisted, and he put his hand up to silence her.

"Not listening. You wanted to win Sectionals so badly, and you still feel like you screwed it up. And I took away Ryder's solo at Sectionals – well, fine, he kind of gave it to me, but he did it because it was what he thought would help you to feel less stressed. This is my chance to return the favor. Dude may have stabbed me in the back, but I also owe him a couple for all he's done that didn't suck."

"Er – okay," Marley conceded, stammering a bit. He tried to ignore her barely-contained excitement at the chance to sing with Ryder again. "And what's number two?" she asked coyly. She had regained some of the spark that she usually had during their conversations.

"And number two, you're going to let me kick your ass at some Mario Kart this weekend or else I'll be pretty pissed," Jake declared, and Marley's smile widened.

"In your dreams, Puckerman!" she chuckled. "What do you say I prove you wrong right now?" She grabbed her bag, and Jake followed her out the door of the auditorium.

Ryder was out sick for a couple of days at the beginning of the next week, but when Jake finally ran into him in the locker room on Wednesday morning, he said hi for the first time in weeks.

Ryder gazed up from the mat where he had been doing sit-ups. "Hey dude. What's up?"

"Not much, man. How was your weekend?" Jake responded, doing his best to remain casual.

"Eh – kinda sucked. I was sick in bed the whole time. Just sat around and did nothing on my laptop," Ryder said, shrugging. "How about you?"

"Pretty chill," Jake said vaguely. He didn't think it would help to mention that he had hung out with Marley, no matter how platonic it had remained; then it would seem like he was being a douche and rubbing it in Ryder's face when really he was finally trying to suck up his pride and just get along with his friend again.

"Hey, man, I gotta ask you a favor, though," Jake said deliberately, and Ryder sat up fully.

"Sure, dude. Anything," he said earnestly.

"Well, you remember how at Sectionals you gave up your dance solo so that you could help Marley feel less pressure?" Ryder nodded slowly; he seemed surprised that Jake had mentioned Marley so casually. He could see no desire to punch him in the face in Jake's eyes.

"Yeah, man. It was the right thing to do," Ryder replied.

"At the time I didn't get it, man. But now, I kind of need you to do the same thing for me. You may have noticed that Marley and I sound like _shit_ on this duet," Jake admitted, and Ryder had the decency to pretend to disagree.

"No way, you guys are both crazy talented. You could never sound bad," Ryder assured him.

"Dude, I hear the comments Kitty makes to you. She thinks we have all the chemistry of a couple of Care Bears, and she's kind of got a point."

"So what does this have to do with me?" Ryder asked, and Jake shot him a knowing look.

"You've gotta sing the duet with her instead," Jake insisted. Whatever Ryder had been expecting, it didn't seem to have been that. There was genuine shock on his face that, if things hadn't been so tense between them still, would have made Jake laugh at any other time.

"Me? Dude, she didn't want to sing it with me in the first place; I think that would only stress her out more," Ryder said, and Jake shook his head in disagreement.

"You didn't see the look on her face when I ran the idea by her. She's totally into it," Jake persisted.

"She hasn't even talked to me except for when I ran into her at Breadsticks last weekend," Ryder argued, and it was as if a light bulb had gone off in Jake's head.

"Last weekend? Did you run into Marley while you were on your date?"

"Um, yeah – how did you even know about that?" Ryder questioned, and Jake tried to play it cool.

"She misses you," he stated, avoiding Ryder's question.

"Yeah, well, I miss her too, but she seems to have made her choice. I mean, I always figured she'd pick you, but I didn't realize she just didn't want me in her life at all." Jake was shocked by the fact that Ryder had grown a bit defensive.

"Man, that's not it at all. I think she's worried I'll get pissed off at her if she talks to you before we figure things out completely – that's part of why I'm talking to you now. So, even if you're serious about this other girl – "

Ryder instantly interjected "I'm not." Jake snorted a bit derisively at him.

"Well, then, all the more reason to go ahead and sing this damn song with her," he insisted, and Ryder seemed to be trying too hard to convince himself that it was a bad idea.

"You've got your thinking face on, which, honestly, makes you look kind of confused. Just agree already, shake my hand, and let's move on with our lives like none of this shit ever happened." Ryder broke into a grin, and stuck his hand out to meet Jake's.

"Sounds like the best plan I've heard in ages," he beamed.

"Even the song?" Jake asked just to be sure. Ryder hadn't been the best with multi-part instructions in the past – once, it had resulted in him bringing a bunch of the guys chocolate chip cookies and Chopsticks during a Halo night at Artie's. Somehow along the line, Ryder had forgotten that there was Chinese take-out that was supposed to accompany the Chopsticks.

"Even the song," Ryder said, and Jake was sure that he heard him say, "Especially the song" under his breath as he hoisted himself off the ground.

"Good. Now change your clothes so that I can drag your ass to math class," Jake said, shoving Ryder gently to indicate that he really wasn't pissed anymore.

"Be right there, dude!" he called over his shoulder, and several minutes later he had returned fully clothed.

Jake and Ryder walked towards their math class together, chatting about videogames and their bracket choices for the March Madness tournament. It would have felt like things had before the Valentine's Day debacle if not for one thing – as they walked through McKinley's halls, Jake couldn't help but notice that Kitty was lurking around the door of a bathroom that Marley usually used to freshen up before her Spanish class each day. Kitty gave Jake her trademark smirk, but she also nodded slightly at Ryder, and in that instant, Jake was 100% certain that the blonde cheerleader was up to something.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: **Shockingly enough, I still don't own Glee or anything related to it.

**Chapter 10**

"All right, blondie – what are you up to?" Jake asked Kitty a week later when he passed her in the halls. He had been repeatedly noticing her hanging around the bathroom whenever Marley was in there, and he wanted to know what was going on.

"Whatsoever do you mean, dear Three Nipples?" she asked him, and he shook his head. He couldn't believe that she was still stuck on that ridiculous nickname.

"You had your she-devil look on last week when Ryder and I walked past you in the hallway, and you seem to be lurking around bathrooms a lot. And you did that weird head nod thing that I'm pretty sure only dudes are supposed to do," Jake pointed out, and she smiled.

"Well look who decided to play Hardy Boys!" she chuckled. "Where's your magnifying glass?"

"Come on, Kitty. You know what I mean. What's going on? Why are you all buddy-buddy with Ryder all of a sudden? At first I thought it was just to piss me off, but – " Kitty stopped him short.

"And why, oh why, would that piss you off?" she asked coyly, twisting her ponytail around her fingers.

"You know how I feel about him messing with my girls," Jake grumbled, and Kitty's eyes danced wickedly.

"So you're admitting I'm one of your girls again," the blonde pointed out triumphantly, and Jake just shrugged. For a while he had been pissed at Kitty for trying to screw up what he had going on with Marley, but he wasn't feeling so attached to that anymore. Plus, hanging out with Kitty was fun in a different way than hanging out with Marley was. Marley was goofy and sweet, but Kitty was challenging and playful. She may be a bitch, but he had never been the type of guy to just love everyone anyway. He wasn't a bad dude, but he also hated pretending to think everyone was _awesome_ to please Marley. It was nice to be able to make fun of people who sucked with Kitty.

"Don't let it go to your big head – I hear Brittany already thinks it looks like a soccer ball," Jake chucked, and Kitty feigned hurt.

"Okay, Brillo Pad," she said, reaching up to ruffle his hair. "Whatever you say."

"Seriously, Kitty – what's going on? It's almost like you're following Marley around. Are you two trying to sabotage something for her?"

"Oh, please. Haven't you realized yet that Bieber-hair doesn't have a scheming bone in his body?" Kitty sighed dramatically.

"Well then what gives? This whole thing stinks," Jake insisted, dreading the thought that maybe Kitty actually was sort of into Ryder. He knew that she had been pretending to have something going on with his brother, but Noah had admitted that he and Kitty were both just not feeling it and only kind of hung out because of boredom.

"Has it never occurred to you that I might want to hang out with a person just because they don't suck more than a blowfish?" Kitty retorted, and Jake immediately responded "No."

"How have things with Hobo Barbie been since you gave the duet to Ryder?" Kitty segued, and Jake couldn't help but let out a groan of indignation.

"Can't you ever answer a straight question?"

"Can't you?" she asked, twirling her hair around her finger again.

"You're not going to give anything up until I answer you, are you?" he said, sighing.

"I never give anything up," the blonde cheerleader teased, and turned towards her locker again, making to brush Jake off.

"Fine. They've been fine," Jake spurted out, and Kitty raised her eyebrows at him.

"Just fine?"

"I mean, she's fun to hang out with – she's a nice girl. But she hasn't made up her damn mind, and I'm kind of getting sick of waiting," Jake admitted. "And I'm not sure I'm really feeling the whole 'boyfriend' thing, anyway."

"You were so arrogant about that duet…" Kitty started to point out, and Jake stopped her before she could finish her thought.

"Don't say it," he began, but Kitty shook her finger at him.

"Dear, dear, that's not the way to get the cat to stop meowing. You're trying to push her towards Ryder?" she inquired, and Jake shrugged.

"I'm sick of waiting for stuff to happen," he countered, seeing Marley walking their direction down the hallway. She locked eyes with Jake, then with Kitty, then ducked into the nearest bathroom. Kitty noticed this and turned to Jake.

"Ta ta, Puckerman!" she said as she sashayed towards the very same door Marley had just entered.

"Hey, what the – ?" he began, but Kitty had already disappeared. What the hell had all that been about? Was that really what she was up to? Following Marley around? He tried to wrap his head around it, but his brain didn't feel like it was working, so instead he headed in the direction of the library to find Ryder for study hall.

Jake finally found his fellow Glee clubber sitting in the back of the library, his eyes glued to a computer screen.

"Man, what are you doing?" Jake asked, pulling a chair up next to him. Ryder tried to close the window on his screen, but Jake noticed the website as it minimized.

"Online dating still? I thought the first girl was boring!" Jake said, chuckling slightly.

"Well, yeah, she was. Totally, totally boring. But – well, dude, I know you were doing me a big favor by letting me take the duet back," Ryder said.

"Making you take the duet back, more like it," Jake muttered laughingly.

"Yeah, well, it's great being around Marley again and having her actually sort of talk to me, but I still feel kind of weird. Like, she just has still avoided mentioning everything that's happened, and I still don't know what you and her are." Ryder was avoiding Jake's eyes. "I just figure it's best if I try to meet new people and sort of butt out and let you guys fix things. It's pretty clear that's what she wants – " Jake shook his head a little bit as Ryder said this " – but it's kind of hard when I still have all these feelings for her." Ryder ducked his head again, as if he was ashamed of himself.

"Dude, stop acting all embarrassed. I'm not pissed at you anymore, remember? I get it," Jake said. "It sucks that it happened, and that none of us has any freaking idea what's going on anymore, but maybe it was supposed to be like this. Karma for snatching her away from you back at the start and all that crap."

"Yeah, but…" Ryder began to protest, and Jake cut him off.

"Enough about Marley, okay? No bad blood, but there's no point in us wondering when we don't know what she's thinking," Jake pointed out. "So have you met any hot babes on here?"

"Er… I don't know, actually," Ryder admitted slowly, and Jake looked at him in wonder.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" he demanded as Ryder pulled back up the site.

"Well, there's this one girl I've been talking to a lot the past couple of weeks, and she seems _awesome_ – but I don't know what she looks like," Ryder said with a shrug.

"How much have you been talking to her?" Jake reached for the mouse to try to scroll through the conversation. "Lame username, by the way."

_Ryder_123_: _Confession: I totally love the Hunger Games too. I read them because my best friend was a huge fan, and I wanted to surprise her._

_Lily904: No way! She must have been so impressed that you made it through all of them with your dyslexia!_

_Ryder_123: Well… I never actually got a chance to tell her. But it's cool because the books were way more epic than the movie._

_Lily904: Team Gale or Team Peeta?_

_Ryder_123: Lol that's such a girl question._

_Lily904: Haha that's your way of saying you're afraid to admit you have an answer to that question._

_Ryder_123: How do you see right through me like that? Team Peeta all the way._

_Lily904: Me too. Peeta's such a sweetheart. Every girl wants a guy who loves her no matter what and pays attention to all the little things that make her happy._

_Ryder_123: So girls don't think guys like that are losers? It seems like most of the ones I know go for the Gale bad-boy type._

_Lily904: I'd pick Peeta anyday._

"Hey!" Ryder protested as Jake started to read through the messages. But Jake had careened Ryder's rolling chair out of the way and taken charge of the computer.

"We're bros," Jake pointed out, as if that should be reason enough to let him read through all of his private messages. "Plus, I have to make sure that not all of your conversations have been this ridiculously girly."

"Ugh, fine, whatever. But you can't keep making fun of me. This girl totally gets me – we have, like, everything in common," Ryder protested. "Just – the only thing I'm afraid of is that this girl might not be for real. Kitty told me not to get _Catfish_-ed, but she hasn't had time to check up on this girl's profile yet."

"Seriously? That's what you and Kitty have been up to?" Ryder didn't seem to feel like answering the question, so Jake went back to reading.

_Lily904: Favorite dinosaur movie?_

_Ryder_123: First, let me point out how _awesome_ it is to finally find a girl who appreciates dinosaurs. I feel like the manly answer to give would be _Jurassic Park_ – don't get me wrong, it's awesome – but my favorite dino movie is totally _The Land Before Time_._

_Lily904: That's totally legit! Steven Spielberg directed the first one; no one could judge you for that._

_Ryder_123: Heh – yeah, if my favorite were the first one._

_Lily904: Oh good, that makes me feel much more comfortable telling you that I _love_ the second one._

_Ryder_123: So I'm guessing you love Chomper too?_

_Lily904: What girl could resist the charms of a baby T-rex?_

_Ryder_123: I don't think anyone with a soul could resist that little dude._

_Lily904: I've only seen one other animated thing that cute in my life._

_Ryder_123: Give me a hint?_

_Lily904: It's from my favorite Disney-Pixar movie._

_Ryder_123: Yesssss. Gimme some fin!_

_Lily904: How did you know? ;-)_

_Ryder_123: Nothing compares to Squirt. Although gotta admit, Finding Nemo is only in my top 3._

_Lily904: NO! What could possibly be better than Finding Nemo?_

_Ryder_123: I'm a sucker for superheroes… I think I gotta go with The Incredibles on this one._

_Lily904: Hmm… I suppose that's acceptable. That's a good one._

_Ryder_123: They're all good ones… Well, except Cars 2. My little sister dragged me to see it; even the cool car races weren't enough to keep me interested._

_Lily904: Good to know there's a guy out there who cares about more than just cars! You are really awesome, Ryder._

"So you've never even seen her picture?" Jake asked suspiciously.

"Nah, dude. I decided I should try to be openminded… The last girl I picked was really pretty, and she turned out to be a total dud. I figure it'll be better for me to really like a girl's personality and try that whole 'don't judge a book by its cover' thing that my parents always taught me when I was little. Of course, I was dyslexic, so I kind of had to judge a book by its cover, since that's where the pictures were…" Ryder shrugged.

"Whatever you say, man. Are you planning on meeting her?" Jake asked him, continuing to scroll through the messages. "Dear Lord, man, she's so in to you. And you guys have so much in common that it's freaky. But… you know who else she has a lot in common with?"

"Don't," Ryder said immediately. "I don't want to know."

"But, dude… This feels almost exactly like you're talking to Ma…"

"I said don't," Ryder repeated. "If it's getting me out of your way, if it means I'm finally getting over _your_ girlfriend – " Jake started to correct him, but then decided against it. He wasn't positive that Marley didn't want to be with him still, so he didn't want to start telling Ryder otherwise.

"Yeah, dude, I appreciate it. That's cool of you. But – are you really sure you're getting over her?" Jake questioned.

"I'm trying, okay? Doesn't that count for something?" Ryder said, grabbing the mouse from Jake again. "Have you seen enough?" he asked crossly.

"Yeah, I think if I see one more _'you so totally get me' _or _'you're really awesome!' _I might puke," Jake said, shrugging. "So you didn't answer my question. Are you gonna meet her?"

"It's not my fault I didn't answer your question; you're the one who got distracted! And – um…" Ryder looked a little bit sheepish. "I kind of sent her a message asking her to prom."

Jake slapped himself in the forehead. "Seriously, dude? Prom? I forgot that was even coming up. Isn't that a little cheesy for a first date?"

"Well, it will be if she says yes. But it's also kind of – I don't know, most girls like romantic stuff like this," Ryder blushed.

"I think _you_ just like doing romantic stuff like this," Jake corrected him, thinking back to Ryder's Valentine's Day extravaganza.

"You know what, man? Let me know if she says yes – I have a prom date to go get," Jake said, leaping out of his seat.

"Right this second? It's time for math class," Ryder said, logging out of his computer as the bell rang to signal the end of study hall.

"Meh? Who needs math when cute girls are free this period?" Jake said, slapping him on the shoulder as he walked off. It was only after he was gone that Ryder realized Marley didn't have study hall until later that afternoon. He shrugged it off, trying not to read too much into it – maybe the couple (were they a couple? Jake hadn't really specified) had made plans to meet up with each other and ditch class. Instead, he headed towards the other end of the building to go to math.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. Absolutely nothing. I apologize in advance if you feel like too much happened off-screen between the last chapter and this one.

**Author's Note: **We're getting to the end, folks! This should be wrapping itself up in 2-3 chapters now. It got a little bit hard at times thanks to RIB and their ability totally kill Ryley feels, but it's looking like there's hope again! We're all in this together, and you guys have been awesome for sticking with this story.

**Chapter 11**

Ryder Lynn was confused, to say the least. Little did he know that, by the end of the day, he would only grow more and more confused.

Practicing their duet for Regionals with Marley was kind of awesome. They still avoided talking about anything even remotely personal, but they were having fun. They'd spend the whole time dancing and laughing at silly things the other would try out during rehearsals. They would end up warming up using various other songs they loved, which for Marley meant a lot of Disney songs that led to debates similar to the one they had had at Breadstix on that disastrously boring date with Angie. Additionally, Jake and Marley were still talking, but their interactions were noticeably less flirty.

Unfortunately, Marley still hadn't said a word to him about how she was feeling or what she wanted from him, and Ryder, not wanting to break any more promises after the consequences of his actions on Valentine's Day, didn't dare push her. Spending so much time with her made it harder and harder to push his feelings away, even as, at the same time, his feelings for his online girl were growing.

Ryder spent most of his time at home messaging Lily these days. Their conversations were fun and lighthearted, and they had a lot in common. Jake and Kitty were continuing to nose around in his business and read as many messages between the duo as they could, especially once Lily had agreed to be his prom date, but this only made Ryder feel embarrassed. Both of his friends were quick to point out the similarities between Marley and Lily, whether it was in regards to their love of girl-power songs, their desperate need for help recognizing brand names on _Icomania_, or their conviction that they were most similar to Belle from _Beauty and the Beast_. There was also that Hunger Games obsession, but Ryder tried to tell them they were being ridiculous. He didn't need to be reminded that he was still crazy about Marley, and it made him feel a little bit pathetic when he actually thought about how similar Lily was to his (sort-of?) best friend.

Ryder and Lily had been having a particularly awesome talk about football endzone dances the night before (okay, so maybe that topic had come from his dance rehearsal with Marley, but who cared about ther details?), and he was looking forward to getting home to chat with her when two things derailed his day. First, Marley asked him if they could have another rehearsal after school that Wednesday. Ryder thought that they were pretty epic already on their duet, but he didn't want to pass up on a chance to hang out with her, either.

The second thing was that Kitty grabbed him on his way to study hall that afternoon. He was walking past the choir room when a black-clad arm reached out and pulled him by the collar through the door.

"Do you have to do your psycho-ninja act on me all the time?" he asked crossly, rubbing his neck, which had a slight cloth burn.

"Cancel your prom date with the Online Abomination," Kitty said, a wide smile on her face. Ryder rolled his eyes - since Ryder still hadn't seen a picture of Lily, Kitty had convinced herself that this girl must just be some ugly chick. She hadn't, however, deemed her to be a total creep - she said those were mostly people who had fake-looking pictures, who were unable to provide a second picture that looked just like the first.

"What? Why? I thought you said it was good that I had another date so that Marley wouldn't think I was still pining for her," Ryder protested, confused by her demand. She seemed to have done a 180 in the past 48 hours since he had first gotten Lily's reply.

"Because Little Honey Boo Boo needs a date, now that Jake asked me," Kitty said. She did her best to try to act smug, but she couldn't contain her own excitement, and a real smile broke through. Ryder's heart dropped. For months he had kind of day-dreamed about what it would be like to have Marley as his date to a dance, but that had kind of gotten crushed when she had asked Jake to the Sadie Hawkin's dance. He had sort of hoped prom would be his second chance, but after the way the past few weeks had played out, he had been convinced it would just be another night where he had to watch Jake and Marley make googly-eyes at each other.

"I - but - Lily..." He protested. He was suddenly a lot less excited about the prospect of going with her, but he also wasn't the type of guy to abandon someone he had made a promise to, either. Plus, Lily seemed really cool so far, and Marley had still shown no interest in him... Why did life have to suck so much for him sometimes? Talking to Marley was definitely easier - it took him ages to type responses to Lily because of his dyslexia - but once he met her, maybe the two girls would be on a level playing field. Maybe he really did just need to give up on Marley Rose once and for all.

"Oh, please. She probably is going to look like a whale in her prom dress. What's wrong with you? This is your chance! This is what you've been pitifully singing about every time I turn around for ages," the blonde persisted.

"You caught me singing once!" he protested, and Kitty just laughed at him.

"Key word - caught you. I'm sure you've gone through every mopey unrequited love song you could find on Google," she said scathingly. Ryder ran a hand through his hair, frustrated.

"I can't just ditch Lily! I made a promise to this girl, and she's been really cool. And just because Jake doesn't want Marley - how did that happen, by the way?" Ryder lost his train of thought midsentence, looking at Kitty expectantly. "Did you do something to sabotage this for her? You promised you wouldn't play dirty or do anything that would end up hurting her."

"Who, me?" Kitty put on a mask of innocence. "Relax, Bieber-hair - I played by the book on this one. I did everything I promised you I would. It just seems that Jarley wasn't meant to be."

"Since when did you give them a couple name?" Ryder said, resisting the urge to make a gagging noise.

"Oh, please. We're part of the most incestuous glee club in North America. Everyone has a couple name. Your brother told me that one day the old members just sat around and listed all of them. You and Marley are Ryley, by the way - sounds much cuter, don't you think?" Kitty teased. Ryder tried not to blush as he was temporarily at a loss for a witty comeback.

"What does that make you, Kake?" he said when he regained his composure.

"According to Brittany's script for her post-prom episode of Fondue for Two, we're Jitty," she said with a shrug. "Not that I care," she added with a forced air of nonchalance. Ryder was kind of psyched to see her bitch-face come down and be replaced by a look of pure joy that he hadn't seen since he met her, but at the same time, he was torn. Marley still seemed so happy when she was around him lately - guarded, but happy - but apparently she and Jake had broken up. He had no idea when that had happened or how he had missed that development, but he couldn't help but think there was a reason she had hidden it from him.

"Look, Kitty - I need to go get some studying done," Ryder said, turning towards the doorway.

"You're running away," she pointed out, and Ryder didn't even deny it. His thoughts were jumbled, and he had no idea what he should do - he was trying so hard to finally get over Marley, and it sucked a lot that she had never bothered to tell him how she felt. Part of him wanted to ask her, but part of him still felt so tentative around her and Jake that he didn't want to screw things up again for all of them.

"Congratulations - I'm really happy for you," he called over his shoulder as a final thought as he headed towards his normal spot in the library.

Ryder had hoped to find some peace and quiet in the library, but instead Jake was sitting there waiting for him. Sure, they had been hanging out again and were back on decent terms, but Jake wasn't the type to sit around waiting for him. Instead of waiting to see what he wanted, he figured he'd just cut to the chase.

"So you're taking Kitty to prom," the brown-haired boy stated it half as a fact and half as a question.

"Sure am," Jake said, smirking a little bit.

"So you – I mean – when did you and Marley break up?" Ryder asked, confused.

"Dude, we never really got back together," Jake said, shrugging.

"But you guys were hanging out and talking. You were getting all possessive about her not doing the duet with me in the first place. I thought…" Ryder protested.

"Nah, dude. I was just pissed off at you. We were trying to figure out a way to still be friends, but pretty early on I realized that, even if she did for some reason choose me, I couldn't be the right guy for her."

"Why's that?" Ryder questioned.

"Well, I started to get a little bit suspicious of the fact that Kitty was following her around everywhere – I thought it was some new form of sabotage. Like, she was that desperate to get me back from Marley that – " Jake began, and Ryder shook his head.

"You have this opinion of her, and yet you're still taking her to prom?" he chuckled.

"Not the point. She makes me laugh. And she's totally hot. Besides, as you well know, she wasn't up to anything awful. You're the one that asked her to tail Marley every time she went to the bathroom," Jake chided.

"So what does any of this have to do with what's going on with you and Marley?" Ryder tried to contain his curiosity, but he was doing a bad job. He had been dying for some news of how Marley was feeling about the situation with him and with Jake, but aside from occasional reports from Kitty and the things he (probably somewhat creepily) observed for himself, he had respected her need for space and had tried to leave her alone, at least as far as her personal life was concerned. They had been getting along and having fun working on the duet, but Marley had still never addressed their personal situation, and he had been focused on talking to Lily, anyway.

"I never would have thought of that, man. It never even crossed my mind that she wasn't okay. To keep an eye on her and make sure that she doesn't try to hurt herself again... I'm not the type of guy who knows how to really, really take care of a girl like her," Jake admitted.

"It's not your fault – she wanted you to think she was okay. There's nothing wrong with you for not noticing," Ryder assured him. This rekindled friendship with Jake was too new, too delicate – Ryder didn't want to be anything but completely supportive lest he end up on the receiving end of that Puckerman right hook again.

"Yeah, but you knew. Plus… you'd never make her feel that way. Like she needed to do that to keep you around," Jake muttered. His words were quick and quiet, and Ryder had to really think about them for a moment to make sure he had heard them correctly.

"What do you mean, I'd never make her feel that way? You wouldn't make her feel that way, either," Ryder said, trying to keep a questioning tone out of his voice. He wasn't trying to accuse Jake, but his stomach had dropped a little bit.

"The day before we admitted that space really just meant we were done, Kitty caught her – you know – about to…"

"What?! What good is having someone keep an eye on her if she doesn't – " Ryder exclaimed, but Jake raised a hand to shut him up.

"Dude, do you want me to punch you in the face again? Just let me finish talking," the other boy said in as joking of a tone as he could muster in this situation.

"Not particularly," Ryder admitted, trying to stay casual. "So what happened?"

"So Kitty followed here into the bathroom and caught her trying to duck down by the toilet. Apparently she did some kind of psycho cheerleading kick that Coach Sylvester taught them to break locks with, and she confronted Marley about it. It's not like she does it consistently, just when she feels overwhelmed and not good enough. And when Kitty asked her to fess up, it seemed kind of like all those instances coincided with whatever was going on with me." Jake hung his head a little bit, obviously feeling very guilty. Ryder could barely contain the anger that was coursing through him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Ryder demanded. "What kind of shit did you say to her?" Ryder knew that he was breaking his promise to keep his cool and appease Jake, but seriously? How could he be so casual about the fact that he made Marley feel like she needed to throw up?

"Dude, chill. I know it sounds bad, but I never put her down or anything like that. I always tried to tell her she was awesome and make her feel special; even if I sucked at it, she knew I was trying. _You_ knew I was trying," Jake reminded him. "You know how Marley is, though – she's always had this screwed up idea that she's not good enough for me. She thinks I'm better than her, and like she has to change herself to be like the girls I was with before. I think she's always been worried that I would abandon her the first time someone skanky walked my way, and I don't know how to make her stop feeling that way." Ryder wracked his brain for something to say; he could tell that Jake legitimately felt ashamed of himself, and he knew it really wasn't his fault.

"I'm so sorry, dude. For what it's worth, you seemed like you were doing a pretty awesome job with the boyfriend thing," Ryder admitted.

"Ha – I appreciate that attempt, man, but most of my best stuff was all you. You don't need to pretend that you're disappointed about things not working out with us; she was never gonna be as happy with me as she could be with someone else. She just didn't want to lose me completely, so I think she held on longer than she should have until I realized on my own that we weren't gonna make it," Jake said.

"With me, she was kind of infatuated. She liked the idea of the reformed bad boy, this guy that she got along with really well that made her feel special but was dangerous at the same time. But you – she's still got the special thing, but she feels safe with you. Even now, when you've barely been hanging out for acouple of months, she still knows that you'll always be there for her, at least as her friend. I was too unpredictable; she didn't think I would stay around if she admitted she wanted you," Jake concluded.

"Who said anything about her wanting me? She hasn't talked to me about what's going on either, you know. I told her I was giving her space to figure out what she wanted; if she wants me, she could have told me by now," Ryder pointed out.

"Dude. You're so blind," Jake rolled his eyes.

"What?" Ryder asked cluelessly.

"You know what I think about your whole situation," Jake said, dramatically waving a hand at the computer that Ryder usually logged onto during his study hall.

"Will you give it a rest? I'm sorry if you seem to think that Lily is just an exact clone of Marley, but that has nothing to do with how Marley feels about me. Maybe it makes me pathetic, okay? Is that what you wanted me to admit all this time? That I can't have Marley so I found someone who loves all the same things as she does? In case you forgot, they're all things I'm really into, too. That's why Marley and I get along so well. Because she's the only person in this school who won't judge me for having a Charmander stuffed animal in my bedroom. She's the only girl I know who thinks it's cute that I have Superman bed sheets still. She's the one person who gets that sometimes I just like to start dancing around doing the YMCA for no reason. Can you really blame me for wanting to find someone else who appreciates all that stuff?"

Jake gave Ryder a glare that made him feel like he was clearly missing the point, but Ryder pulled a book out of his backpack and indicated that he had no interest in further conversation.

"Squirtle's totally cooler than Charmander, dude." Jake couldn't resist, and Ryder glared at him.

"Okay, okay. I'm shutting up now. But you know, Marley's not planning on getting a date to prom – she told me she was going with _friends_," Jake said, making air-quotes, "If that means anything to you."

"It doesn't. And that doesn't sound like you shutting up. I don't know what you're getting at, and I don't want to know," Ryder insisted, opening his homework to pretend that he was going to get work done, even though he knew he would just spend the entire period dwelling on what could have possible happened if he had just waited a little bit longer for Marley.

_There's no point in wondering – she just wants to go and have fun with Unique and forget all about me and Jake_, Ryder thought to himself darkly, barely even noticing that Jake was still hovering over him. He looked up and acknowledged his presence with a grunt of agitation.

"Seriously, dude. What?" Jake just smiled.

"Just wait 'til prom – you'll see," the darker boy said mysteriously before finally leaving Ryder to his not-so-peaceful thoughts.

**Thank You for Reviewing Chapters 9 and 10!**

**Lady Emily **and** Guest: ** I'm glad you guys feel like Jake is a more well-rounded character than before! I don't hate Jake, I just really think he and Marley have no chemistry together, and Ryder is such a sweetheart! Hopefully you liked the turn of events here!

**Chapter 10 Guest**: Haha, you predicted it with the Jake asking Kitty thing! I couldn't resist throwing in a little bit of Jitty because I think they're adorable! And I'm sorry for killing the Ryley feels last chapter – I wrote this right as mine finally came back, so I promise I'm not steering them too far off in the wrong direction!

**Maiqu: **Thanks for reading! I'm glad you're enjoying the story :-D


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note:** To those of you who celebrate Easter, Happy Easter! To those of you who don't, I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. I'm sorry that this chapter took a little bit longer, but we're almost at the end!

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. Glee is not mine – if it were, Jarley would have ended like 4 times already! Also, there are Hunger Games spoilers in this chapter, so I apologize in advance to anyone who hasn't read the series!

**Chapter 12**

In the couple of weeks since Jake and Kitty had spoken to Ryder about prom, he had tried so incredibly hard not to ask Marley any questions about what was going on with her, even though they had rehearsed together _every_ day. Marley had even wanted to get together on Saturdays and Sundays to make sure that they stayed perfect, and Ryder just laughed and went along with it, especially when their weekend rehearsals turned into mini-golf outings and endless games of Pokemon Snap on his old Nintendo 64.

The night before prom, their afternoon rehearsal had turned into a trip to the Lima Bean and then a visit to Marley's house to watch _The Hunger Games_. Even though Ryder had seen it three times with Marley, and she had probably watched it countless times more on her own, it was still a nice way to spend the night before prom – especially when Marley's mom was cooking for them.

Mrs. Rose had presented the two teenagers with a tray of homemade pizza (made with pesto sauce instead of tomato, and topped with garlic chicken and roasted red peppers, which Marley successfully convinced Ryder was delicious) alongside a bowl of salad and iced lemon-tea. She had promised them there was ice cream later if they wanted it before retreating to her own room and leaving them alone in the living room.

Marley and Ryder managed to finish off the pizza – Ryder was careful not to hog it, and he was happy to see that Marley didn't make any effort to go to the bathroom after the meal was done. Instead, she pulled a hoody on, tucked her knees up to her chest, and scooted a little bit closer to Ryder just as Katniss and Peeta entered into the Hunger Games arena.

"I still can't believe she thinks he really betrayed her," Ryder said, shaking his head at the screen when Peeta joined up with the Career Tributes.

"She was confused! It was a high stress situation, and she didn't know how much he cared about her," Marley said, chuckling. "I like how you're still this in to the characters after seeing it three times, though."

"Well, yeah. Peeta's sort of awesome. If he were a real person we'd be bros," Ryder said, pointing at the screen, where Peeta was telling Katniss to run away and save herself.

"You guys are sort of alike," Marley agreed without even thinking, and Ryder gave her a look.

"Oh really? How's that?" Marley blushed furiously, and Ryder tried not to chuckle at how cute she looked. He wasn't supposed to be thinking about her that way anymore; in less than 24 hours he was going on his first date with someone who he hoped would turn out to be really awesome for him.

"Well – no reason," she said, turning back to the TV as he poked at her.

"No way! You can't get away with that. You can't just compare me to one of the most awesome fictional characters of the last decade and then just pretend you didn't say anything," he said, and Marley giggled a little bit as he poked her in the side again.

"I'm ticklish!" she protested, shrieking with laughter.

"I'm not even tickling you!" Ryder chuckled, continuing to prod her. "I'll stop if you tell me what exactly it is that you see in Peeta and in me," he insisted. "It's only fair."

"Fine, just make it stop!" Marley gasped, still smiling. "Peeta's just such a genuinely nice guy. He's really sweet, and he's always there to watch out for Katniss. He really pays attention to the things that she cares about, and he makes her realize everything she's capable of. He makes her a better version of herself when they're together," Marley stammered, and Ryder finally relented on the tickling. That brief look of embarrassment crossed her face again, but Ryder brushed it off, assuming that she was just flustered because of how violently she reacted to tickling. She hadn't really ended up answering his question – instead, she had gone off on a tangent about the characters in things she was passionate about, as she had a tendency to do.

"I'm pretty sure you're just spitting out random stuff to get me to stop – although if you had kept thrashing around, I'm pretty sure you would have punched me in the face, which also would have stopped me," he teased. "Plus, I think you got a little bit off topic. Total rant about how amazing Peeta is – and I always pegged you for a team Gale kind of girl."

"I used to think I was, but Gale… He's just not the right guy. That doesn't mean he's not a great guy, but he was rebellious, and unpredictable, and she only thought she liked him because he was there first," Marley said, shrugging. Ryder felt almost as if her eyes were boring into his, almost as if there was something he was missing. He wasn't quite sure why, but Marley's face made him think there was some urgent need to understand why Gale wasn't the right guy for Katniss. Instead, though, Ryder opened his big mouth and ended up stating the obvious

"Probably didn't help that he was part of the reason her sister got blown up," Ryder added darkly, and a smile crossed Marley's face.

"That doesn't happen until the third one, you know – and only the first movie is out." Her blue eyes shone with happiness, and Ryder remembered that he had never actually told her he had read the books because of how much she loved them. He had told Lily, but sometimes talking to her felt so similar to Marley that he got the two mixed up.

"Yeah, well, you made them sound so interesting," Ryder said. "Plus, my dyslexia specialist thought it would be really good for me to try to read something a little bit easier than a textbook to figure out if any of her coaching methods are working on me. Turned out _The Hunger Games _was a perfect test."

"You never told me you read them." Marley's voice sounded a little bit wistful, and for a moment Ryder thought she might _finally_ address the space that had grown between them after Valentine's Day. Blue eyes gazed into brown and held his glance until the moment was gone and she began to ask him which book was his favorite.

After an enthusiastic conversation in which they both agreed that _Catching Fire_ was their favorite and _Mockingjay_ was the book they enjoyed the least, Ryder and Marley let their eyes settle on the ending of the movie. Although it had been fun to share his opinions with Marley – that was part of why he chose to read the series, after all – he couldn't help but feel a little bit unsettled after the conversation. He was having a hard time shaking a feeling of déjà vu (it felt like he had just had that exact conversation, but he couldn't have) mixed with a feeling of frustration – their talk had been passionate and excited, so why did he feel like there was something he was missing still?

Mrs. Rose interrupted his thoughts when she poked her head into the room.

"Marley, sweetie, can you come here for a minute? I'm trying to put the finishing touches on your dress for tomorrow," Mrs. Rose said, and then added to Ryder, "I hope you don't mind if I steal her away for a minute." Marley quickly ducked out the door, and cracked it behind her. Ryder pulled out his phone to play Icomania while he waited for Marley to return, but he could hear the sound of muffled voices through the door.

"Oh, mom, it's beautiful!" he heard Marley exclaim, "Thank you so much for doing this for me. I know it's taken you a lot of time."

"Sweetheart, anything for you. He's going to think you're beautiful, I just know it!" Ryder was confused by Mrs. Rose's words – Marley was supposed to be going to prom with her friends. He tried to keep a straight face as Marley ducked back through the door, but she looked at him in dismay.

"What's wrong?" she asked, and Ryder started to pretend it was nothing. He changed his mind, though, realizing that he was sick of all the secrets and lies. Yeah, it was great to be spending time with Marley again, but he hated the walls that had been built up between them, and he wasn't going to sit back and pretend they weren't there any longer.

"I thought you didn't have a prom date," Ryder said pointedly.

"I don't," Marley responded, taken aback.

"Then why is your mom saying _he'll_ think you're beautiful?"

"It's nothing," she muttered, refusing to meet his eyes. She was biting her lip, and Ryder didn't want to be mad at her, but the not knowing was killing him. Had she been talking about Jake? Had she been talking about him? Had Marley already forgotten about both of them completely? All of the questions that had been building up for weeks ricocheted through Ryder's brain at once, and he found himself blurting the one that seemed most pressing.

"Why aren't you going to prom with Jake?"

"I would think that's obvious," she said, a bit defiantly.

"Well it can't be that obvious if I still don't understand," Ryder retorted. "I mean, Jake told me you guys decided you were done, but why? I just don't get it, Marley. The last time you and I really talked, you told me you needed time to figure stuff out and asked me if I'd still be there for you once you decided. And I said yes, and then you decided, and then you didn't come back even though I was still there, just like I said I would be."

Marley whispered something that sounded a bit like gibberish, and Ryder reached up and lifted her face so that her eyes were locked on his.

"I have no idea what you just said, Marls," he said softly, trying to ignore that stupid fluttering feeling he got whenever he stared into her eyes like this. It made him feel so vulnerable and kind of girly, but a little bit giddy at the same time.

"I said I never decided," she said, averting her eyes once more.

"Of course you decided. You picked Jake, Marley. And I get that. I get that you're in love with him – "

"I'm not!" she protested, but Ryder ignored her and continued talking. It felt good to finally be telling her how things had seemed to him; it was as if a fist had been clenched around his heart or his brain or maybe even around his stomach for the past few weeks, and suddenly the grip was loosening as everything he had kept from her spilled out.

"And I get that it was really important to you to try to make things right, and to fix things, but you never talked to me. You just froze me out, and it _really_ sucked. I promised I would be there when you made up your mind, and I promised I would give you space, and those two things totally conflicted with each other because you never bothered to let me know that you made your choice and you chose Jake."

"Stop saying I picked Jake! I never picked Jake!" Marley repeated. Before she had seemed a little bit sad, and maybe a little bit defensive, but Ryder noticed that there was an increasing tone of desperation in her voice. He should stop; he should leave it alone. He finally had her back in his life, so why was he pushing her away again? He was dwelling on something that had been doomed before it had even started, and tomorrow was the day that he was finally going to move on and move past all of the hurt he had been feeling, so why was he still here, pressing things with Marley?

"Stop acting like you need to spare my feelings, Marley. You didn't want me. I get it. But we're still here, and we're still friends, as long as you still want to be. I just want to understand why you never talked to me. Why you started hanging out with Jake all the time but gave me the silent treatment. Why you never even told me he broke up with you."

"It was mutual, thanks very much," Marley muttered darkly. "And maybe it wasn't your feelings I was trying to spare." Ryder opened his mouth to question her, but thought better of it and waited for her to explain. If she wanted to, she would – that was always how things with Marley worked – and if she didn't want to, pressing her would only make her angrier.

"I never got back together with Jake – maybe he didn't bother to mention that little piece of information. I was just trying to make the friends thing work with him. You know how he is – he gets so proud, and he acts like everyone's against him. If I had come running right back to you, how would I have ever convinced him that having him in my life was important? It would have made him feel like he never really mattered at all." Her voice quavered a little bit as she gave her explanation, and Ryder felt guilty for snapping at her.

"Is that why you felt like you had to throw up?" Ryder blurted out. "Because you felt like you were losing Jake?" Marley's eyes blazed a little bit, and instead of answering Ryder's question, she responded with one of her own.

"Why did you have Kitty follow me around?"

"Did it stop you from doing that to yourself? Even just once?"

"Yes," Marley admitted.

"Then there's your answer," he replied, trying to keep his voice cool and failing.

"She caught me both times I tried," Marley elaborated. "The second time I remembered to lock the stall – you would have thought I would have learned the first time, when you found me before _Grease_ – "

"Yeah, and I hear she did some kind of ninja kick and popped the lock out of the door," Ryder said, chuckling a bit in spite of himself. His voice grew serious again when he looked at Marley, who had curled her knees up to her chest again and was hugging them tightly.

"Marley, you can't do that to yourself. No matter what's going on in your life – I know I told you this before, and I know it didn't do any good then – you're so beautiful. You're the most beautiful girl I've ever met, inside and out. You could be the size of a house for all I care, and I'd still adore you." Ryder realized he was overstepping his boundaries – he realized he was undoing all of the progress he had made towards moving on by letting those words out of his mouth, but Marley was hanging on to his every word.

"You're one of the kindest people I've ever met. You've never once made me feel stupid even though I am; you didn't even laugh at me the time that I got confused and thought that stop-sign said 'Pots'. You think my end zone dances are funny. Your nose does this cute scrunching thing whenever we're dancing during group numbers in glee club. You understand all my random _Land Before Time_ references. You think I don't notice that you play with my Charmander doll every time I leave the room while we're studying at my house. You let me play the easier levels on _Angry Birds Star Wars_ so that it seems like a girl isn't doing a better job than me at a video game. You make me feel like somebody really understands me and doesn't judge me for any of my weird quirks – you don't even make fun of me for being afraid of lizards because they remind me of dinosaurs. And you make me want to try harder and be better – I never tried to read a whole book just for fun before. That was all you, Marley. You – "

Whatever Marley was, she would never find out. At that moment, she crossed the distance between them and crashed her lips onto his.

Ryder felt like his head was spinning; even though they had only kissed twice before, he had missed the taste of Marley's lips. Part of him told him no – this couldn't be happening, not now. He had a date with another girl tomorrow, another girl who seemed to be totally in to him and who hadn't jerked him around the way that Marley had. _Another girl that you only like because she reminds you so much of Marley_, the other part of his brain reminded him as his right hand raked through her hair and clutched the back of her neck as his thumb grazed her cheek.

He knew that he was losing the battle in his brain – this was _Marley_, the girl who had consumed his thoughts for months, and for once she was the one who had kissed him first. The members of the Glee club had spent a lot of time talking about what their Kryptonite was, and Ryder had spent countless nights lying awake, tucked under his Superman sheets, thinking about how Marley was his.

Marley broke away just as suddenly as she had launched herself at him, and Ryder could only stare at her, dumbfounded.

"I think you should go," she said, and Ryder felt his heart sink. _No, no, no – this can't be happening. Not again._ Things had finally been getting better, and he just had to go and open his big mouth, and…

"Marley – " he began to protest, but she avoided his pleading look and went over to the basement door. She held it open for him, and he sighed, wishing he could just slam his head in the door instead of walking through it.

"If I'm really so special for you, then why didn't you wait for me?" she whispered sadly just before she shut the door in Ryder's face.

**Thank You to: ChuckNutz, Abswers**, **Vyvyaaannn, eefjuh66, Prongsies, Nava3000, xXXGizmoXXx**, **Sylvanna**, **asphodelgold,** and **Wilwarinya** for following and/or favoriting the story. You guys are amazing!

**Reviewers: **

**Wolf9Lucky**: I'm glad you like the song… You might see it again in this story ;-)

**Lady Emily: **Still have to wait to see if your theory is right about Ryder's prom date!

**Guest** **who likes Jitty**: I'd love to hear your theory! The identity of Ryder's date was supposed to be revealed in this chapter, but then I got a little bit carried away with the Ryley scene… Hopefully you'll find out who she is next time!

**Anon:** I really appreciate the feedback! I'm go glad you feel like I've kept them in character because I've tried really hard not to take too much liberty with their personalities.

**Other Guest**: I'm really glad you liked that I dragged it out, because there were times when I worried that the pacing was too slow! Only two(?) more chapters and an epilogue left now.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note: **Thank you guys for continuing to be so supportive and wonderful! I'm sorry that it took a whole week for me to get the next chapter up, but hopefully it was worth the wait. This is a long one! I considered splitting it in two, but decided not to leave you guys hanging for that long. Also, I know that regionals would normally be before prom, but try to forgive me for changing the timeline a little bit.

**Disclaimer: **I still own nothing, Glee-related or otherwise.

**Chapter 13**

Ryder went home and stared at his ceiling pretty much all night long. He had a message from Lily about how excited she was about prom tomorrow, and he ignored it. He had a message from Jake asking if he wanted to meet up beforehand and find flowers for their dates (_or whatever crap I'm supposed to get girls for a dance_, the message had read), and Kitty had sent him a message asking if he wanted to grab dinner at Breadstix beforehand with her and Jake – _and Lily_. Ryder ignored their messages, too.

The only person he wanted to see a message from was ignoring him…again. Since it had been fairly late when Marley had kicked him out, Ryder hadn't wanted to bang on the door or anything that might disturb Mrs. Rose or their neighbors. Instead, he sat on her front doorstep for a while, calling her cell phone and sending her message after message. After about 45 minutes of ignoring all of his efforts, the porch light had gone off, and Ryder had gone home.

His eyes had slid shut a few times, but his sleep was fitful. He couldn't shake the look in Marley's eyes from his memory; one second, her whole face had been shining with what had come across as total admiration (or was it more than that?). After all, she was the one who hadn't been able to tear her eyes away from him as he had told her all the things he adored about her.

Worse, though, was the look on her face when she had thrown him out after kissing him. She had kissed him, right? It wasn't like he had just imagined it; she was the one who had launched herself into his arms, not the other way around this time.

But her eyes had changed so drastically; she had looked hollow and scared and lost as she had whispered that he should have waited for her.

How was he supposed to know that was what she wanted? He had waited for her, and she had seemed pretty clear about the fact that she had chosen Jake. Why hadn't he asked her? Why hadn't he made sure? Part of him felt like this entire mess was his fault.

The other part of him, though, couldn't help but feel a little bit defensive. Marley had seen him on his date with Angie, and she still had barely spoken to him. They had been working together for weeks now on the duet, and she had never even told him that she broke up with Jake. Did she really want him to wait for her because she wanted him? Or had she never really wanted him at all until he had started spilling out all the things he had felt – still felt – towards her?

He groaned as the sun spilled through his window. He felt like he had only slept for about 10 minutes, so he pulled the comforter over his head, wishing he could block out the world as well as the light. It seemed to be no use, though – his body was buzzing with anxiety.

He gave up on sleep just after sunrise the next morning and grabbed his phone again. He had slept with it on his bed-side in the hopes that it would vibrate with some sort of reply, but when he put in his passcode, the screen still showed no missed notifications.

He reread some of his desperate apologies to Marley. _I'm so sorry for everything. Please just talk to me. Please. You've got to know how much I care about you. I'm sorry things got so screwed up. I know I'm an idiot, and that I should have talked to you instead of making assumptions. I'll do anything to make this up to you._

All of his messages seemed destined to remain unanswered.

He begrudgingly dragged himself out of bed to take a shower when he realized that it really wasn't all a nightmare after all and that the day had started and prom was upon him. Once he was out of the shower, he searched his phone one more hopeful time, found nothing there, and threw it back across the room where it came dangerously close to bouncing off of the bed.

Ryder pulled his clothes over his head and then stared around his room blankly. He really had no idea what to do with himself today. He was supposed to be excited about what a great day it would be, and about his first date with Lily, and about getting to go to his first prom (even if it was totally weird that McKinley let 10th graders go).

Instead, he felt stupid when he realized he had no clue what he wanted or what Marley wanted or whether he even wanted to go to the damn prom anymore. How was he going to have fun when he would have to see her there and know that he had hurt her? And worse, what if she didn't show up and he had to worry about whether she was just sitting at home alone and miserable?

He sat down on his bed and opened up his laptop; maybe he would have a message from Lily or something that would make him feel a little bit better about what he was doing. Maybe she would have sent him another message about how excited she was, and how she couldn't wait to meet him, and it would remind him why he needed to get over Marley in the first place. He just couldn't take the ups and downs.

Instead, though, he found nothing. He idly logged onto Facebook, not really expecting it to cheer him up. Marley and Jake had never posted their relationship status on Facebook because they got into little fights so often (he remembered just a couple of weeks ago when they had had to do Guilty Pleasure presentations in Glee club and they had fought over a Chris Brown song… seriously?), but that hadn't stopped her from having a ridiculously couply picture of Jake as her profile picture. Seeing the image never ceased to make him grumpy, but he couldn't stop himself from looking at Marley's page just in case she had posted something since she had kicked him out last night.

He wasn't sure what he had been expecting – there were obviously no status updates about prom or about Ryder. However, she had finally changed her picture, and instead of the picture of her and Jake hugging during the Glee Club's performance of 'This is the New Year' (who took that picture, anyway? No one else had even been in the auditorium!), he was surprised to see that it was a picture of the two of them on stage at Grease.

_What is going on?_ Ryder thought to himself idly. Was Marley trying to show him that she wasn't that upset? Was she trying to make him feel guiltier? Was it all just total coincidence? She did look amazing in that picture, after all.

He was about to close his laptop again in frustration when Marley's name popped up on chat. He was pathetic, he was totally pathetic and he knew it, but he clicked on her name and sent her a message anyway.

_Me: Marley, please talk to me. I'm really sorry about everything. I never meant to hurt you. Things just got really confusing and I guess I jumped to the wrong conclusions. _

It took Ryder a long time to type out the words, and even with the help of his trusty friend spell-check, he had been afraid that Marley would sign off before he could send the message out. There was more he wanted to say, but he didn't have time to ramble. Her phone had been off, so maybe she hadn't seen his texts from last night… Maybe she hadn't been ignoring him after all. Maybe he was just jumping to conclusions again. She had looked so sad, though, and his stomach felt like it was eating his insides as he thought about the look on her face again.

He stared at the green circle still next to Marley's name, and his heart stopped briefly when he heard a beep in reply.

_Marley: I hope you have a really good time tonight, Ryder. I hope your date is everything you ever wanted. Promise you'll save me a dance, though, okay?_

Ryder read her words over and over again, making sure that he was processing them correctly. The green circle disappeared as soon as the message came through, and Ryder ran his hand through his hair again. _Everything you ever wanted? Save me a dance though?_ Did that mean she wasn't mad at him? Did that mean it hadn't meant anything to her yet again?

Ryder covered his face with his palm and went back over to his bed. At least she had responded… At least she was speaking to him. He tried to cling to those bright spots, but then he remembered that he still had another girl who he was supposed to be putting on a bright smile for this evening.

He picked up his phone and dialed the number of a different girl entirely, and Kitty answered on the second ring.

"What's up, Bieber hair? Happy prom day." Her voice sounded cheerful on the line, and he just groaned.

"Really? This is the one day you're going to be all sunshine-y? What happened to the Kitty Wilde attitude I was counting on?"

"All right, I know you've been less excited about prom since you found out Honey Boo Boo was dateless, but have you finally come to your senses and realized that prom is not the ideal first date? Do you need me to give you some kind of fake injury idea to blow this other girl off?" Ryder blanched for a second; although it was tempting to crawl into a hole and hide. But then he remembered that Marley had asked him to save her a dance, and he couldn't stand the thought of breaking promises to not one but two girls – especially not when one of them was Marley.

"Marley kissed me," Ryder said breathlessly. "And then she kicked me out, and then she ignored me, and then she said for me to save her a dance. What the _hell_ does that mean?" He didn't have time for Kitty to get under his skin; he needed to know if she had any useful advice.

"She kissed you? That doesn't seem like it was part of the plan," Kitty said nonchalantly, and Ryder had to restrain himself to keep from groaning again.

"This is even more infuriating than talking to you face-to-face, you know. What plan?"

"It's an expression, you idiot. If she kicked you out afterwards, I'm sure that meant she had no intention of kissing you. What did you do to make that happen? Serenade her with the _Jurassic Park _theme song? Recite part of _The Hunger Games_ for her?"

"Kitty. This is not helping. I just – did I not wait long enough for her? Did I screw everything up?"

"What were you supposed to do, let her dangle Puckerman in front of you forever? You need to calm down, breathe, and tell me what's going on in that flippy-haired head of yours. I thought you were in to prom girl now – why are you spazzing out about what's going on with Marley?" Ryder could tell she was resisting the urge to make some kind of 'I told you so'-esque comment, which he appreciated.

"Oh, come on, Kitty. You're the one who's been telling me that I was only interested in her because she was basically exactly like Marley. How am I supposed to have an awesome time tonight with Marley 2.0 when I should have been with real Marley? Ugh, why did I even listen to you about online dating in the first place?" He exhaled a sigh of frustration.

"Nuh uh. You're not pinning this one on me. You know what Jake told me? She finally admitted how much she missed you after she saw you out with Angie. And I never told you to ask this other chick to prom, so don't even try to blame me for your little debacle. You did that all on your own," Kitty pointed out.

"I'm sorry. I just – why do I always screw everything up? How do I fix this? I couldn't just be content with being friends with Marley again, I had to go and ask her who exactly she's trying to impress at prom – "

"What makes you think she's trying to impress someone at prom?" Kitty interjected immediately. Her bored tone changed to mild interest.

"Well, I heard her mom tell her that he'll think you look beautiful…" Ryder began, but Kitty cut him off again.

"Did you hear from your little online chicky-poo at all while you were with Marley last night?" Kitty demanded.

"Well, no – " Ryder began, and he was not surprised when Kitty cut him off for a third time.

"Listen. You send your flower-girl a message and tell her to meet you at Breadstix at six. I already made the reservation for four anyway. This way, if your date isn't your dream girl after all, Jake and I can save you, but if she is, well, it's not a huge distracting group. Ask her to tell you what color her dress is so that you'll know who she is when she walks through the door."

"I already know her dress is – um – sapphire? Whatever color that is?" He was sure that Kitty was rolling her eyes on the other end of the line.

"All right, then – while you're sending that message, Google sapphire. I'll tell Jake you're meeting him to buy flowers in an hour. And respond to Marley, while you're at it – tell her that you can't wait for that dance."

"What good does that do?" Ryder protested, but he could tell the conversation was over.

"I'll see you at six," Kitty responded in a sing-song voice before he heard the line go dead.

Ryder dragged his feet getting to his computer, but finally he sent a message to Lily (_Hey, a couple of friends want us to join them for dinner at Breadstix at 6 – would you like to meet me there? I think it could be a lot of fun), _a message to Marley (_It would be my pleasure, Miss Rose. I'm looking forward to it)_, and he Googled sapphire (a shade of blue that he couldn't help but think matched Marley's eyes).

He looked at his watch and realized it was still hours until he needed to get ready, but he checked his phone just in case Jake was taking the whole 'shop for flowers' thing seriously. Sure enough, Jake had agreed to meet him at the flower store a little bit later. Ryder had been planning on buying something for Lily anyway, but it had been pushed to the back of his mind by everything going on with Marley.

Ryder tried to be as vague as possible around Jake that afternoon; he knew that his friend seemed cool with letting Marley go, but he wasn't sure he would actually be thrilled to hear about his ex-girlfriend kissing Ryder, either. Jake could tell that something was up, but he didn't press the issue. He smirked a little bit when Ryder purchased flowers that he was obviously imagining matching with Marley's dark hair and sparkling eyes.

"It's not my fault that I don't know what Lily looks like, okay?" he snapped at Jake irritably, which didn't do anything to wipe away his friend's smirk and only made Ryder feel worse for losing his temper.

Jake shrugged, and Ryder was pretty sure that okay, it was his fault he didn't know what she looked like, because he was an idiot for asking a girl he had never met to prom, but maybe she could still be really cool. Maybe she could make him forget about Marley and about how he felt like his head had been spinning for months because of how confused she made him sometimes. Maybe Lily would make him forget that, to him, Marley was worth all of the confusion and worth all of the trouble.

Or maybe not.

After his shopping trip with Jake, he went home to check if Lily had agreed to the slight change in plans (and to see if Marley had responded to his message, although he wasn't going to count on that). He was pleasantly surprised to find new messages from both girls had arrived around the same time.

_Marley: It'll be the highlight of my night_.

Ryder ran his fingers through his hair again, not sure whether to smile that she was actually excited to see him after last night's weird encounter or to face-palm because she seemed to be just ignoring whatever issues had come up again. He clicked on the message from Lily instead, still hoping it would miraculously make him more enthusiastic about going to prom and having to face Marley and his still-unresolved feelings.

_Lily904:Sounds great! I can't wait for tonight_.

Ryder swallowed and tried not to feel guilty; he wasn't nearly as excited as this poor girl deserved for him to be. He closed his laptop and climbed into bed, but his attempt at a nap was almost as unsuccessful as his attempts to sleep the previous night had been. He tried to focus on all of the conversations he had had with Lily that had made him think he could get over Marley in the first place, but each conversation he recalled reminded him of a similar conversation with Marley. There were times when he couldn't even remember which girl had said what, and he tried to take consolation in that – talking to Lily would be fun, even if it didn't go anywhere. He could just treat it the way he had been treating rehearsals with Marley; goof around, get along, but don't get too personal.

He finally rose from his bed and went through the motions of getting ready. It was almost a mechanical process to put on his black suit, and he checked in the mirror one last time to make sure his hair wasn't out of control before heading out the door in the direction of Breadstix.

He found Jake and Kitty waiting for him outside; Kitty looked very pretty in a dark green dress, and the smile on her face when Jake pulled her closer to him by putting a hand on her lower back was more sincere than any he had ever seen from his blond friend.

The two tried to engage him in small talk, but Ryder was distracted. His hands jittered and his eyes locked on every girl who walked through the door of Breadstix, trying to figure out which girl was his mysterious date. His stomach felt like that fist was clenching around it again, and he hoped that Lily would be able to recognize him from the picture he had sent her.

Six o'clock came and passed, and Ryder was starting to get nervous. What if she didn't show up? At least then he could spend time with Marley without feeling guilty, but that would be pretty humiliating. Jake and Kitty had already told her about how Ryder was taking a girl he had met online to prom, and Marley would probably think Ryder was pretty stupid if he showed up alone. Or maybe she would think he was reading way too much into what had happened last night – which, granted, he probably was.

Beside him, Kitty's phone started blaring some Beyoncé song, but he was too busy staring around for his date to pay any attention to what she was saying. However, when the call was done, she snapped her fingers in Ryder's face to get him to look at her.

"So change of plans, loser. We never actually had a table for four – Jake and I are going to go sit down at a table for two, and in about two minutes, you're going to go inside with your date and tell them you have a reservation for two under the name Ryder Lynn. I tried to tell them you were Justin Bieber, but they didn't buy into that, unfortunately." Ryder was pretty sure his jaw dropped. Why was Kitty choosing to screw with him now? He guessed he should have known she would pull something mischievous sooner or later, though – it was unusual for her to be so helpful for so long.

As if she read his mind, she began speaking again. "Don't look at me like that –you'll be thanking me earlier," she assured him, waving her hand in farewell as she and Jake passed through the doors into Breadstix. Ryder made a pleading face at Jake as he left, but his friend just gave him a thumbs up sign and walked away.

Ryder turned his attention back toward the front walkway of Breadstix, fairly certain that his nerves were going to cause him to start pulling apart the bouquet of flowers he was holding any second. He had felt much more secure a few minutes ago when he thought that Jake and Kitty would be there as backup. His nerves only increased when he spotted the next person to walk up – it was Marley.

_Shit._ He should have realized that everyone in Lima would be at Breadstix before the prom and that Marley would probably show up with Unique or some of the other dateless Glee kids. He wanted to avert his eyes, but there was something about the way she was smiling at him – beaming, almost – that made him unable to tear his eyes away no matter how awkward he felt.

"Hi Ryder," she said a bit shyly when she got near him, and dammit, why was there another girl on the way to meet him? The clenched feeling in his stomach went away and he couldn't help but break out into a wide grin at the sight of her. She looked beautiful, and her eyes were sparkling in a way that was so similar to how she had looked when he had been telling her all the things he liked about her.

"You look beautiful, Marley," he breathed as he took in her appearance. Her hair was lightly curled and pulled slightly away from her face so that he could look straight into her deep blue eyes, and she was wearing a dark blue dress that made them even brighter than normal. Her makeup was subtle so that it didn't take away from her natural beauty, and he was pleased to see that she was wearing the heart pendant that he had picked out for her for Valentine's Day, even if technically it had been a gift from Jake.

He knew that he should let her go inside, or at least say something a little bit more intelligible to her if he was going to keep staring at her stupidly. He couldn't be gaping at another girl – at the girl he wished he was here with – when Lily showed up.

Fortunately, Marley broke the silence.

"You look quite handsome yourself," she said shyly, and then she reached out and touched his hand. He was still clutching Lily's flowers, and he was sure his face went beat red. Marley looked nervous, and he wondered why – maybe she knew how bad this would look if his date showed up right now, too. She didn't seem to really be concerned with that, though, as she batted her eyes at him slightly.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Lily, and I'll be your date for the evening. I hope you're as excited as I am," Marley stammered, and this time, Ryder was sure that his jaw really did drop.

Thanks for favoriting/following: RyleyFan, bookworm1771, ChuckNutz, and ChrissEccles.

**And now, my lovely reviewers:**

Gleeotch1234: Sorry for ending the last chapter the way I did – hopefully you won't hate me for ending with another cliffhanger!

Guest: So far, I don't have any plans for a sequel, but if an idea strikes me I would definitely be open to writing one!

ChuckNutz: I hope you liked this chapter too!

HG and PJO 4ever: I have heard the rumors! I really hope that ends up being true.

Addy: I'm glad you like the way I write the characters; I have another Ryley story planned after this one and I hope to get the first part of it up before Thursday's episode airs.

Lady Emily: You guessed right! Next chapter you'll get to find out why she did it.

Other Guest: Prom next chapter – maybe! I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long.

Maiqu: Thanks for reviewing and continuing to give me support!

Sylvanna: Another cliffhanger – I hope you're not too disappointed!

Prongsies: I'm glad you had such a strong reaction to the last chapter – that's definitely what I was hoping for when I steered away from my outline to have that Ryley moment.

Kittycat12346: Thanks so much for the positive feedback!

Asphodelgold: Promised you I'd get a chapter up this weekend. I finally motivated myself to get it all out there. See you in 20 minutes! :-p

**I'm so sorry if I missed anyone! You guys are really amazing and it makes it so much more fun to write when I know you guys are enjoying the story.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Note: **You guys are amazing! Especially **Lady Emily, LucasnHaley, Melanie, Addy, Lumos-Hermione-Nox, ChuckNutz, mimizmagic, Ember411, asphodelgold, Guest, TheGreatKanaka, Quickaremylife, **and **gleekygurl11. **Thank you for all of the wonderful reviews and for all of the follows and favorites. This chapter is monstrously long, so I hope no one gets too bored!

**Disclaimer: **I still own nothing, Glee-related or otherwise.

**Chapter 14**

Ryder was sure that he was staring stupidly at Marley. He at least forced himself to close his mouth so that his jaw wasn't still hanging open — knowing his luck, a bug would fly in or something and make him look even dumber.

"I — wow. Just wow," Ryder said, trying to sort through his emotions. Part of him was elated; he had spent all day wishing that he could be here with Marley instead of with his mysterious online date. The other part of him was crippled by his own confusion. Marley was Lily? Was that really what she had just said? But…why?

Marley was still staring at him expectantly, and he realized that he should say something — anything — but he wasn't really sure where to begin.

"I…um, I'm sorry that I wasn't honest with you. I was hoping you would be happy, but…maybe this was just a really bad idea," Marley stuttered, her eyes falling from Ryder's face to her own feet. That jolted Ryder out of his temporary state of paralysis; he reached out and cupped her cheek, raising her eyes back to his.

"Of course I'm happy. I'm just a little bit confused," he admitted, and he hoped that she could see how earnest he was being. His feelings were usually pretty transparent; he was relieved when a slight smile crossed her face once more

"I can see how that might be the case," she chuckled lightly, and he realized that his hand was still holding her face. He wanted to lean in and kiss her right now out of relief, but he decided that he should wait for some answers so instead let his hand fall back to his side. "I promise I'll answer every question you have," Marley offered sweetly, and Ryder started wracking his brain for all of the things he wanted to know. He glanced around for inspiration, and instead saw Kitty through the glass windows of the restaurant, rolling her eyes at him. Jake, sitting next to her, smirked and pointed at the door.

Coming to his senses, Ryder turned back to Marley and let out a deep breath to calm himself. He was here at the best restaurant Lima had to offer; he was about to go to prom with the girl he hadn't been able to get his mind off of for months. Sure, he had imagined how awesome this moment would be, but he had never thought it would actually happen. Now he was here, living it, and he needed to get a grip on his emotions and make sure everything went perfectly.

"You look amazing. This is going to be amazing," he said, winking at her as he repeated the lines he had said backstage before Grease. He held out the corsage of flowers that he had bought earlier, and offered lamely, "I got this for you."

Marley's smile brightened, and he could tell that she was suppressing another giggle as he fumbled to take it out of the box. He was still so flustered — he was here with Marley; this was real and not just a dream.

"I don't seem to remember Lily telling you her favorite flower was also peonies," she said shyly as he slid the corsage onto her wrist. Ryder felt a blush creep onto his face; Jake had smirked at him earlier when he was buying the flowers for that exact same reason.

"Well, someone once told me they were the queen of flowers; I figured I couldn't go wrong," Ryder said with a shrug. Marley only continued to beam at him as he offered her his arm and led her through the door inside of Breadstix.

They remained quiet as Ryder told the hostess he had a reservation, and they stayed that way as the hostess led them to a secluded table in the corner. Breadstix was decorated for prom with candles on all of the tables and dimmer lighting than usual. Marley's face was still glowing in the soft light, but once they were settled into their booth, she sat on top of her hands and kept glancing between Ryder and her flowered wrist. He could tell that she was nervous, so he figured that he should get his questions out of the way first so that they could enjoy their evening — after all, they were here together, and even after they had been through so much, he knew that he always loved spending time with her.

By the next time Marley's eyes darted his direction, he had settled on what question he should ask first. He hesitated, afraid of messing things up yet again between them, but then he remembered how excited she had been when she had announced that she was actually Lily. Somehow, he thought it would be a lot harder to mess things up this time.

"You know, I really am excited that it turned out my date was you," Ryder began, letting a smile creep on to his face. Marley's smile seemed a little bit less forced after he said that, and her eyes stopped dashing back and forth.

"But…?" she said, waiting for the questions to start. She still seemed a little bit more reserved than she normally was, but he could tell that there was enthusiasm bubbling beneath the surface. He had been talking to Lily — Marley, he reminded himself — for over a month now; he was amazed that she had been able to keep the secret.

"Why didn't you just talk to me? I mean, talking to Lily was fun and all, but I really just missed you," he pointed out. She looked at him sadly before answering his question.

"I really missed you, too. It's just that — well, at first I was so caught up in trying to make sure that Jake forgave me that I didn't even try to figure out how I was feeling romantically. Suddenly my boyfriend was mad at me and at my best friend, and it seemed like the best thing I could do was leave you out of things and give him time to cool off. You seem to think that we were back together and happily dating again, but that was never the case," Marley said, and Ryder found himself hanging on to her every word. He supposed it made sense thus far, but there was still a lot of ground for her to cover.

"I wanted to talk to you so many times, but I didn't know how. And then Mr. Schuester had us sing that duet…Well, you saw how Jake reacted to that. At that point, I was sort of starting to figure out what I was feeling, but I was selfish and I wanted to find a way to keep both of you in my life. I wanted to make sure that both of you would still be my friends, no matter what I decided." Ryder nodded his head in understanding. However, even though she was here with him and it was obvious what she had decided, he still waited, wanting to hear her actually admit out loud that she had chosen him. It still didn't feel real; he was still afraid that there would be some kind of 'if' or 'but' involved, or maybe some kind of revelation that their breakup had been all Jake's decision and Ryder was the backup choice after all.

"I guess I just kind of took you for granted. I thought that… Well, I had already blown you off for so long, and you still seemed to care about me so much, I just assumed that you would still be there for me by the time I placated Jake. And Ryder, you have no idea how sorry I am for that — I really hope you'll let me make it up to you somehow; I was such an idiot, and…" She stopped, horrified that Ryder had begun to chuckle.

"Why are you laughing at me?" Her eyes widened, but Ryder just scooted closer to her in the booth and squeezed her hand.

"You're rambling," he laughed, and she stuck her tongue out at him.

"It's not funny! I'm nervous! You have no idea how many times I almost chickened out of this plan!" Marley protested, and then amended her statement. "I'm still nervous. You must still have a lot of questions."

"Well, yeah," Ryder said with a shrug, "But it is nice to hear your side of things. I must admit, I still have _no idea_ why you decided to pretend to be some online dating girl, but I'm all ears." He resisted the urge to pull her a little bit closer so that she was leaning her head on his shoulder — a larger part of him wanted to be able to see her face. She kept scrunching her nose up whenever she thought something she was saying seemed lame, and she unknowingly raised her eyebrows each time she wanted a reaction from Ryder. His favorite, though, was the way she blinked whenever she was embarrassed; it was like watching her eyelashes dance around her large blue eyes, and he found it rather endearing.

"So I kept waiting to kind of see if Jake would calm down, and then just when I felt like maybe I was comfortable enough with where I stood with him to start talking to you again…Well, I almost talked to you that day, but then Jake walked up and I felt so stressed out by him being there. That was when Kitty found me in the bathroom and told me that you were going on a date with some girl you had met online that weekend," Marley said, gritting her teeth in a way that made Ryder tempted to laugh at her again. Even though it sucked a tiny bit to have to relive the last couple of months again as Marley told her side of the story, her facial expressions were worth it. He had a feeling that the end result would be worth it, too.

"And then I ran into you at Breadstix," Ryder supplied.

"Well…yeah. I was going to try to pretend I didn't know and start trying to talk to you again Monday at school anyway, but then I ran into you and that plan was sort of shot to hell. I didn't want it to seem like I was only talking to you again because I was jealous of some other girl. I was really afraid that you would think I only wanted to talk to you because I thought you were moving on, and not because I really genuinely missed having you in my life." She ducked her head a little bit, and Ryder could tell she was reliving all of her mixed-up feelings as well. He remembered that night, when he had run into Marley with Angie, and he hadn't had any idea that she was jealous. She had been in a hurry to leave, sure, but he thought it was because she still felt awkward around Ryder after the kiss. Just another thing to add to the long list of signals that had gotten crossed between them.

He hated the thought of having made her experience even an ounce of the hurt he had felt watching her with Jake. He raised her hand, which he had still been squeezing lightly, to his lips and gently kissed it. Then he intertwined his fingers with hers as he let their hands go back to resting on the seat cushion.

"The only good part of that date was getting to talk to you," Ryder assured her, and she seemed to regain a bit of her confidence.

"That girl was really pretty," Marley pointed out coyly. Ryder knew that she was looking for reassurance, but he didn't even care – if this night worked out between them, he would tell her she was beautiful every day for as long as she would let him.

"You're really pretty," he corrected her. "And kind, and silly, and fun to be around. That girl was really boring. It was like talking to a tree stump."

"You've been hanging out with Kitty too much," Marley chided him as she idly played with their interwoven fingers.

"Well, judging by the fact that Kitty seems to have been in on this little plan of yours, I'm going to guess that you have been too." Ryder started to stick his tongue out at her and then quickly clamped his mouth shut, remembering that they were at a nice restaurant and not hanging out alone together at her house. He wanted to seem like he could be a charming and classy date rather than an oversized goofball.

Marley seemed to have noticed, though – she bit her lip to try to prevent herself from laughing, but the tiniest of snorts escaped from her anyway.

"Hey! Now who's laughing at something that isn't funny!" Ryder feigned hurt, but his puppy dog eyes only caused Marley to let out a real giggle.

When she had managed to put on a straight face again, she took note of Ryder's patient but expectant expression and resumed her story.

"Well, Kitty doesn't come in quite yet. After I ran into you at Breadstix, my head was all screwed up again. I spent the rest of the weekend trying to figure out what I should do, but I came up with nothing. There was no way that I could ignore how I felt after how I reacted to that. Part of me thought that I should fight for you, but that felt so incredibly selfish. You were so understanding when I turned around and started dating Jake, and you tried so hard to stand back and let me be happy that I couldn't believe I was considering stopping you from moving on. The other part of me was terrified that I had lost my chance and wondered if maybe I should just go back to Jake and ask him if we should maybe give things another try. The biggest part of me, though, just chickened out and continued to do nothing. I avoided having serious conversations with you and with Jake yet again," Marley admitted with a small pout.

"Uh huh. You know, I seem to remember that I got my first message from Lily just a couple of days after that very unsuccessful date with Angie," Ryder prodded, and Marley sighed.

"Like I said – I didn't want you to feel like you were my second choice. But I missed you – I really, really missed you. I can't talk to Jake about things like Disney Princesses and about how cute Toad and Toadette are on Mario Kart. Plus, he totally doesn't get my obsession with The Hunger Games," Marley added with a small smile.

"So you decided to make a fake online profile to talk to me with?" Marley nodded, showing off her adorable pout once more.

"I was too embarrassed to suddenly start talking to you again after I saw you on a date with another girl. Plus, I had barely been convinced that Jake was cool with me even before I ran into you. And I figured, well, this way I can talk to my best friend again, and maybe see if he really likes me for me and not just for the idea of me. I felt like you might have built me up in your head too much while you were waiting around and watching me with Jake, and the idea of a clean slate was nice. I could talk to you and figure out if you really liked me because of all the things that we have in common, or if you just liked me because you felt like you weren't supposed to stop liking me since you promised to be there for me," Marley said a bit breathlessly..

"You must have gotten pretty bored waiting for me to figure out how to spell everything right when I sent you messages," Ryder joked, trying to make sure that he kept the mood light. Marley had chosen to be here with him, even if she had tricked him a little bit – that was more than enough to keep him happy for now.

"It was worth it," she confessed. "But I did have a hard time remembering that just because I was spending all night talking to you online didn't mean that I could just walk up to you at school and have a normal conversation. I almost forgot that we were still being weird around each other a couple of times – "

"Things didn't have to be _that_ weird," he reminded her, but she disregarded his comment.

" – but I almost forgot a couple of times. Plus, not being honest with you and Jake was really draining. Not to mention Kitty wouldn't stop pestering me. Between the fact that she had caught me almost – you know – and the fact that I had to suck it up and ask her what dating site she had signed you up for in order to have any hope of finding you, she was on me like a hawk. I hoped that I could keep everyone fooled for just a little bit longer, because I really didn't think my plan through beyond just wanting to talk to you, but all day I could only think about how much I wanted to get home and talk to you again."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I was starting to feel the same way about going home to talk to the mysterious Lily." Ryder winked at her, and Marley's blue eyes seemed to twinkle in response.

"Noted," she replied. "But – I guess I couldn't expect both of you to stay clueless forever. Someone was going to have to crack and finally confront me, and I should have known it would be Jake. I tried to push back what was now staring me straight in the face, but I was even more distracted than ever and it was showing. Rehearsing for Regionals with Jake had been a bit of a disaster before, but after I ran into you and set up the whole Lily thing, all I could think about was you, and it turned into a total nightmare. By the end of that week Jake was ready to throw in the towel and give the duet back to you for the good of the team."

"I think it was more than just for the good of the team, you know – he seemed to think you were pretty unhappy and wanted to make things better for you, too," Ryder pointed out. After how cool Jake had been acting about losing Marley, Ryder felt the need to interject a little bit of bro-love into the conversation. _Not enough to make her wish she was still with Jake, though_, he thought to himself.

"Yeah, you may have a point." Marley suddenly seemed very interested in their still entangled hands; she stared down at them as if they were the most fascinating thing she had seen in a long time.

"Do you want me to let go?" Ryder joked, trying to draw her out of whatever personal reflection she had escaped into.

"No!" she said, suddenly looking up again, and he loved the way her cheeks were tinted pink after her declaration. "But yeah – that was the first time Jake seemed really sure that I had feelings for you. He became pretty insistent that you take his part when I blurted out the fact that I ran into you on a date and felt really uncomfortable about it."

"Seriously? Did everyone know that you were jealous but me?" Ryder asked her playfully.

"Pretty much," she responded laughingly. "So Jake decided to talk to you the next time he saw you, but you got sick. And I decided I should talk to you too, and tell you what was going on and apologize and tell you that I only did it because I missed you so much – but then you asked Lily to prom, and I panicked. I knew that Jake was being cool about things, but I didn't think he was quite ready to handle that yet. I wanted there to kind of be a transition period for him to get used to the idea, not to kind of throw it right in his face the day that he gave you the duet."

"Wait a second – I seem to remember Lily messaging me back while I was sitting at home sick." Ryder eyed her suspiciously, and she returned his gaze with an innocent smile.

"I was distracted in class, anyway – I didn't see the harm in responding and talking to you," she informed him matter-of-factly. Ryder grinned at her.

"That was the most fun I've had sitting at home feeling crappy since I was little and got to watch all the classic Cartoon Network shows that used to be on during the day," he admitted.

"I seem to recall you mentioning many of said shows to your mysterious online love interest," Marley chided him, and he shrugged.

"What can I say? I like to relive life's happiest moments. It's not my fault that scenes from _A Pup Named Scooby Doo_ are among them," Ryder pointed out, and Marley shook her head as if to say that he was clearly responsible for that list but that it was adorable anyway.

"Well, perhaps you can share some of those moments with me sometime. My Scooby Doo knowledge stops with _Scooby Doo, Where Are You_," Marley admitted, and Ryder squeezed her hand, which was still nestled under his. He loved the fact that finally, after months of wanting to take her out on a proper date, he could be here holding Marley's hand in public. Sure, they were in a secluded corner, but it was a start.

"I would love to. Your life isn't complete until you see how adorable he is in puppy form," Ryder promised her, winking.

"Yes, well – shall I continue?" Marley seemed hesitant, but Ryder nodded fervently. "Anyway...Lily waited a day to tell you whether she would go to prom with you, remember? That's because as soon as we had our first duet rehearsal that Thursday, I knew I couldn't stand the idea of you going to prom with anyone else. I knew it was crazy and stupid and might even make you mad, but it was a chance I had to take. And, well, here I am." She flashed him the most awkward grin he had ever seen, and he reached across his body with his free hand to poke her in the side.

"Nuh uh, Marley Rose. You can't just stop there. That was like three weeks of rehearsals and hanging out ago." _That was a really, amazing kiss followed by a totally devastating shunning ago_, he added mentally. She huffed at him softly.

"Do you really want to talk about that?" Marley asked him softly. Ryder knew that she was growing timid again, and he was sure she was tired of speaking at this point, but he really needed to know. He had spent the past 20 hours or so sitting around feeling miserable and confused, and last night's encounter made the fact that they were sitting holding on to one another's hands seem all the more like a dream and not reality.

"Well, let's put it this way. How would you feel if, in the middle of your story, I did this…" Ryder's heart thumped in his chest as he leaned towards Marley; he knew this was a bold move, but he had been having a hard time resisting the urge to get closer to his prom date for half-an-hour now, and it's not like anyone ever hated show-and-tell, right? He quickly captured her lips with his, and he could feel Marley's breath hitch in surprise. For a brief second he forgot that they were in public, because this was so different from the first two times he had kissed her – her reciprocation had been instantaneous, as if she, too, had been waiting for this to happen.

Reluctantly, Ryder pulled away and continued to make his point. "So I did that, and then I pulled away abruptly and asked you to leave. How would you feel?" Marley's face was beat red when she met his eyes, and with her free hand she swatted at him playfully.

"Fine, that was totally not cool!" she admitted with a laugh. "In fact, I – wow," was all she could stammer out, and for a second Ryder thought that the dazed look on her face would lead to her touching her lips in shock. She recovered by pulling idly at a lock of her hair.

"So what else do you want to know?" Marley conceded, and Ryder wracked his brain to find the questions that were still unanswered. He had forgotten how distracted he got every time he kissed Marley; each time a question started to form he just wished that he could kiss her again.

Finally, though, he decided just to cut to the chase. There were other questions that could be answered later, some of which needed to be directed at Kitty and Jake rather than toward Marley.

"So…last night. What was all that about, Marls? Like…I've been so confused all day. I sat outside on your porch for like 45 minutes last night hoping you would come back out and explain it to me."

"I guess that makes it my turn to apologize to you," Marley said earnestly. "I just – I hope you know that this hasn't been easy for me. This year has been really tough, between confidence issues and always feeling like I was hurting either you or Jake and never feeling completely sure that I was doing the right thing or with the right person. I mean, yeah, being with Jake was cool and made me feel good about myself most of the time, but then whenever I was with you I felt like I could just completely be me. I just let myself get so caught up in thinking I was confused, and it all kind of exploded in my face last night."

"Explosive could be a good word for it," Ryder teased, and Marley let out another small huff of indignation.

"I'm trying to apologize here," she reminded him, and he stopped chuckling at her. "I'd been doing such a good job of keeping my feelings underneath the surface for so long, but I was freaking out. For the first time, I finally felt like I had really figured out what – who – I wanted, and who I wanted to be, and I was suddenly panicking that tonight would be a disaster and that you wouldn't want me at all after everything I put you through."

"Marley…" Ryder began to object, but she squeezed his hand again to indicate that she didn't want him to say anything yet.

"I was trying so hard to sort of hint to you that I had realized you were the right guy for me," she said sheepishly. "I even let myself go off on a tangent about how I thought you were similar to Peeta, and how at first I was Team Gale but I had grown to realize that Peeta is the one who Katniss really belongs with. God, it was so cheesy, and after I said it all, you had that adorably clueless look on your face, and it dawned on me that you had no idea what I was trying to say."

"Wait, so you really were talking about me with all of that?" Ryder asked, and Marley impulsively kissed him on the cheek.

"Yep, that's the adorably clueless look I was talking about," she laughed. "But when I realized that you didn't understand what I was trying to say, I started to get crazy and worry that you were really just excited about your prom girl and had no interest in being my Peeta anymore."

"Your Peeta. I can't decide if that's weird or awesome, but I kind of like it," Ryder interjected, and Marley's furious blush rose on her cheeks once more.

"Look, I know it's silly, but Ry, everything I said – that's how I feel about you. That's how wonderful I really think you are – you know how serious I get about my Hunger Games," Marley joked.

"Oh, believe me, I know," he agreed in a mock-scared tone, and she stuck her tongue out playfully before continuing to speak.

"Basically, I chickened out of telling you that I was going to be your prom date. And then, after I had started to let myself believe that you really weren't excited, you started telling me all the things that make you care about me so much. And oh my God, I don't think you even realized you were doing it, but I just wanted to melt into your arms right then and there. No one has ever noticed or appreciated the things that you see in me, Ryder. No one has ever made me feel so special and so loved and so happy and safe all at once, and my emotions just got the better of me," she admitted. Ryder's heart swelled; he really hadn't meant to say all of those things about Marley the night before, but he so genuinely liked those things about her that they had spilled out anyway. It made all the confusion of the past day feel worth it to know she had felt that way during his impromptu speech.

"But… there's one thing I still don't understand," he admitted, hating to break the moment of total peace. "Why did you kick me out? I think it was pretty obvious that I was nowhere even close to over you, and I had less than zero desire to stop kissing you, like, ever." Marley's eyes regained a bit of their sparkle.

"Well, there will be plenty of time for that later," she promised coyly, and Ryder, completely without meaning to, ended up staring at her lips as he licked his own. Marley noticed the shift in his gaze and laughingly reminded him, "Later! We're not making out in the middle of Breadstix."

"Again," Ryder corrected her, remembering the kiss from earlier that he totally didn't regret initiating, and Marley shook her head with an amused sigh.

"I got flustered. I had chickened out of telling you that it was me, I let myself go on a rant about how amazing Peeta is while thinking 100% about you, and then I had thrown myself at you even though I was convinced that you were more excited about going to prom with another girl. I just had no idea what I was doing, and I was in way over my head, and you said all these things that were so wonderful and that most girls would die to hear, and all I could think to myself was that I took it for granted that you would wait for me to choose you, and you have let yourself start to fall for another girl."

"Another girl who was you," Ryder pointed out, trying hard not to laugh at how ridiculous the entire thing was. He had been worried that Marley had chosen Jake, and Marley had been worried that he had been serious about finding someone else.

"You didn't know it was me," she protested, and it was his turn to shake his head at her.

"Marley, you know why I set up an online dating account in the first place? Because I thought you picked Jake, and I thought that I had to get over you. And obviously I failed miserably, because I went online and the only girl that even remotely interested me was a girl who talking to felt exactly like talking to you," Ryder reminded her. "And the second that Kitty told me she was going to prom with Jake, I was kicking myself for having pounced on asking Lily. I didn't want to break a promise to someone who had been so cool about so many things, but I wanted more than anything to be here with you," he stated matter-of-factly. A goofy grin spread onto his face as he thought about everything, and he added, "And now I am."

"And now you are," she agreed, leaning her head onto her shoulder. She peered up at him through long-lashed eyes. "So you're not mad? You really are excited to be here with me?"

Ryder crossed his right hand over his body to take her hand in his, and used his newly-freed left hand to stroke her hair softly. "I couldn't think of anyone in the world that I would rather be with tonight – or any night, for that matter." Marley nuzzled him lightly just as Kitty walked by their table on her way to the bathroom.

"Seriously? Have you guys even ordered food yet?" She narrowed her eyes at the duo, who were both shaking their heads no.

"Well, hurry up! Our food just arrived, and as much as I'm thankful that we got to stick you two at your own separate table, it would still be nice if you actually arrived at prom and hung out with us at some point," the blonde said bossily, and Ryder and Marley both smiled.

"Wouldn't miss it for anything," the brunette said, sighing contentedly.

"Would you mind sending a waiter our way?" Ryder added before smiling down at Marley again.

"God, the googly-eyes you two are making are even worse than I imagined," Kitty snapped, but Ryder could tell that there was no conviction in her statement. She had been making a very similar face at Jake the last time he had caught sight of them across the dining room, and there was a smile that she couldn't quite wipe from her eyes as she talked to them.

"Thanks for the support, Kitty. It's so great to know that we've got a friend like you on our side," he rebutted, and she rolled her eyes exaggeratedly.

"I'll send you your waiter," she sighed as she flounced away from them.

"When she walks by again, I'll have to thank her," Ryder murmured into Marley's ear.

"And why's that?" she asked in amazement as she scooted herself even closer to her date.

"If it weren't for her, I never would have met my perfect prom date," he whispered as a uniform-clad woman appeared and asked, "Can I take your order?"


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's Note: **You guys are amazing! Especially **Lady Emily, Guest, ChuckNutz, liampayneluver7, Rita – this is an utopic world, ThatPoppyGirl, asphodelgold, TotalGleek16, Guest 3, Akitsuki Akira, LucasnHaley, LiveLaughGlee, Addy, Other Guest, **and** Anon (Guest). **Thank you for all of the wonderful reviews and for all of the follows and favorites.

This is the last chapter, but I promise there is an epilogue coming your way. After all, Marley and Ryder have been rehearsing the heck out of that Regionals duet ;-)

**Disclaimer: **I still own nothing, Glee-related or otherwise.

**Chapter 15**

When Ryder walked into the prom an hour later with Marley on his arm, he was still feeling like the luckiest guy in the world. She looked absolutely radiant in her sapphire-blue gown (now that he saw it on her, he understood why girls made such a big deal about colors). A few heads turned as the pair walked through the door; Unique, who had obviously been in on Marley's plan as well, gave him a thumbs up, his Sadie Hawkins date, Celeste, pouted slightly, and Tina, who was once again accompanied by Blaine, dropped her jaw and looked at them in shock. The seniors in Glee club had all been really cool towards Ryder when he had been having a tough time with things, and it amused him to see the reactions of the older kids when he arrived with Marley.

"We should go find somewhere to put your stuff down," Ryder said, nodding towards the small purse that Marley was clutching. She flashed him another one of those blinding smiles, and God, it was _amazing_ to have her finally be looking at him like that after all of this time. He didn't even have to do anything over-the-top or amazing to sweep her off her feet; so far tonight all he had done was listen, and reassure her through little gestures, and in return he got to see that look in her eyes, that twinkle that he hadn't really gotten to see since the day that they had found out they were going to be Danny and Sandy in Grease.

The two of them made their way to a back corner where they saw Jake and Kitty sitting; it was covered in other familiar bags and accessories, making it clear that the Glee club had claimed this table as their own.

"Hey there, Bieber hair. Mysterious online woman," Kitty said, nodding to them as Marley set her belongings down on the table. "I'm amazed that you actually made it to the dance. I thought you were going to sit and stare into each other's eyes at Breadstix the whole night. It looked like something out of a Disney movie; I was shocked that you didn't start eating different ends of the same noodle." Beside her, Jake rolled his eyes at his date, and for a moment Ryder was worried that it might be too soon for Kitty to be making jokes like this in front of Marley's ex-boyfriend. However, Jake shot Ryder and Marley an amused grin, and Ryder's muscles relaxed a little bit.

"Eh – I was never a big Lady and the Tramp fan. I'm more of a – "

"Lion King kind of guy." Marley finished Ryder's sentence for him, and he chuckled slightly.

"I guess I talk about my love of Simba that much, huh?" he asked, grinning at her in that goofy way that was reserved especially for Marley Rose.

"It's not your fault that there are a limited number of Disney movies that are about animals that are truly awesome," Marley teased. "You know, only Robin Hood, The Rescuers, 101 Dalmatians, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, Oliver and Company…"

"Okay, Oliver and Company legit isn't that great," Ryder protested. They had had this debate many times; Ryder really didn't mind any of those other movies, and both 101 Dalmatians and Robin Hood were among his favorites, but it made him laugh to see how worked up Marley got defending some of her favorite childhood films.

"Seriously, dude? We're at our first prom and you're gonna get into an argument about Disney movies?" Jake said, rolling his eyes at them again. "Does anyone else want anything to drink? I promise I won't even spike them until you ask me to." Kitty smiled appreciatively at Jake as he went to fetch drinks for the four of them, and once he had walked away, she turned back to Ryder and Marley.

"So I'm guessing this was a good surprise?" Kitty said mockingly, and Ryder wrapped his arm around Marley in order to pull her closer to him again.

"I'll take that as a yes," the blonde said with a grin.

"How long have you known?" Ryder asked her, and Kitty shrugged nonchalantly.

"Since before blue-eyes here actually told me," Kitty admitted. "As soon as Jake told me about your conversations with 'Lily,' I decided to investigate. I can't help it that I'm a total mastermind. I should really consider legally changing my name to Nancy Drew."

"Hey! You didn't seem _that_ positive that it was me," Marley protested, leaning in to Ryder as she spoke. "Your main supporting evidence was that you didn't think there were two people in the world that loved The Hunger Games as much as I did, which is totally not a strong argument." The blonde gave her friends a face that clearly indicated she didn't care what Marley had to say. Her face had lit up, and Ryder had a feeling that meant Jake was approaching again.

"You seem really happy around Jake," Ryder blurted out, and Kitty gave him her classic bitch-eyes.

"I don't do happy," she retorted.

"Uh huh. Sureeee," he said disbelievingly. He glanced down at Marley to make sure that his comments weren't offending her; she had been in to Jake for a long time, after all, and just because she had chosen to explore her feelings for Ryder didn't guarantee that her feelings for Jake had all just magically disappeared. However, the brunette looked incredibly content to be tucked into his side, and he let out a breath that he didn't even realize he had been holding in.

"Look, I really like him, okay? If you tell anyone, I will ruin both of your lives, but I really want tonight to go well. And not just for my own sake, but for all of us. Things have been kind of up and down and headed towards crazy town all year, but in spite of all the drama, we all seem to be doing okay. So promise me that you'll have a good time tonight and not get all weird about who's dated who and who's been in to who and who had to pretend to be a fake internet girl to finally confess her feelings to someone else." Kitty had begun in a surprisingly earnest tone, but by the end Marley let out an exasperated huff.

"That's not how it happened!" she protested, but Kitty waved her hand in a clear 'whatever' motion.

"So are we all clear on the 'make sure prom kicks ass' thing?" Kitty repeated as Jake returned to her side, holding out drinks for everyone.

"Absolutely," Ryder and Marley said in unison, and he winked at his date again. Jake and Kitty didn't seem to notice, though; he had whispered something into her ear, and she was giggling in a way that she never did when she had her guard up.

After a little bit more talking with Jake and Kitty, Ryder finally escorted Marley to the dance floor. Tina and Brittany and Artie finished singing right as he led her to the dance floor; Ryder had been too busy hanging on to his date's every word to even really absorb what song they were performing. Without even knowing what kind of song was coming next, he pulled Marley closer to him. After months of wanting to be with her, he didn't want to let go of her now that he was finally here and now that she had finally picked him.

"You know, I seem to remember this being a lot different the last time we were in this gymnasium," Ryder said as he slid his arms around Marley's waist. Blaine had just begun a rendition of Aerosmith's "I Don't Want To Miss a Thing." Ryder vaguely remembered other members of the club fighting over who would get dibs on singing this song, but of course, Blaine had won. One thing Ryder had definitely noticed since he had joined the Glee club was that Blaine had a tendency to end up with most of the best songs.

"Oh really? How so?" Marley asked, wrapping her slender arms firmly around his neck.

"Well, for one thing, I was the one up there singing the hopelessly romantic song because I didn't have anyone here to share the moment with. And if I recall correctly, you were out here dancing, completely oblivious to the fact that I was singing to you," Ryder teased, and Marley batted her eyes at him.

"Oblivious, huh? I'm not sure that's quite the word I'd use to describe it," she added, nuzzling his shoulder. "I know it's selfish, but I kind of hoped you were singing to me. I mean, don't get me wrong, I had a good time with Jake, but… Well, I felt like I spent the whole night telling him all the things that I needed from him if he was serious about wanting to date me. All these things he would have to change or do differently to be the right guy for me."

"Mhm," Ryder murmured, trying to show her that he was paying attention to what she was saying even though he was a little bit distracted by the vanilla scent of her hair and by the way loose strands of it tickled his face.

"And…well, with you I don't feel that way. With you, I feel like if that's where things end up between us, it'll all just happen naturally. It doesn't feel like you need to change anything for us to be able to work," Marley admitted, burying her head deeper into his shoulder. There was no space left between them; she was entirely enveloped in his arms. Ryder absentmindedly hoped that the song after this one would be slow, too, so that he wouldn't have to let her go.

"_I don't want to close my eyes,  
I don't want to fall asleep,  
'Cause I'd miss you, baby,  
And I don't want to miss a thing…_" Blaine's voice drifted above the rest of the audience, and Ryder was only aware of the words to the song because it echoed how he was feeling. He didn't want to miss out on anything anymore; he had blown too many chances with Marley in the past, and he didn't want to mess anything up ever again. For that very reason, he was hesitant when he spoke. He didn't want to push things too far, too fast, but it almost felt like Marley was leading the conversation this direction for a reason.

"Is that how you want things to be?" Ryder asked her softly. She tipped her head up to meet brown eyes with sparkling blue, and he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

"I don't want to rush anything. I know that you've had a lot going on, and if you think it's a good idea to give it some time and make sure that this is what you really want… That _I'm_ what you really want – "

"I'm sure," Marley soothed him. He resisted the urge to kiss her hair – was kissing hair weird?

"I mean, four hours ago I didn't even know I'd be on a date with you, and like two weeks ago I thought you were still Jake's girlfriend and maybe not even my friend anymore, and…"

Marley tilted her chin upwards and planted a soft kiss on his lips.

"Ryder. I am positive. For the first time in a long time, I feel totally sure of what I'm doing. If it makes you feel better, we don't have to put a name on things yet, or flaunt it around people at school or whatever, but I want to be with you. When I'm with you is the only time I feel completely comfortable being myself. It's the only time when I find myself smiling over the tiniest of things. When I'm not with you I find myself thinking about the way you flip your hair out of your eyes when you're concentrating really hard on something, or about the way you always seem to tap your pencil on your desk to the tune of 'Juke Box Hero,' or the way that you make puppy dog eyes at me when you want another one of my mom's peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. I know that I kind of sucked for trying to push all that stuff to the side for so long, but if you'll still have me after everything I've put you through, then nothing would make me happier than being your girlfriend. You know, if you're ready for that." Marley exhaled deeply, and Ryder couldn't help but grin. It felt almost as if their roles were reversed now; the night before, he had been the one blurting out his admiration of her, and now it seemed to be her turn.

"Well, my mom did always raise me to make sure a lady has everything she needs," Ryder assured her, and her eyes widened.

"Really? You don't need time to think about it?" Marley's voice rose a little bit, the way it always did when she was trying not to show that she was excited about something.

Ryder couldn't resist the urge to crash his lips onto hers – because he could. He could do that now. Whenever (okay, maybe not _quite_ whenever) he wanted. His hand rose up to stroke her cheek, and his thumb ended up resting on the nape of her neck as he ran his fingers through a stray tendril of her hair. He could feel Marley smiling against his lips as she kissed back with a fervor, and whatever state of shock has still lingered over this night dissolved completely as Ryder's heart soared.

"_Cause even when I dream of you,  
The sweetest dream will never do,  
I'd still miss you babe,  
And I don't want to miss a thing,"_ Blaine concluded on the stage, and Marley and Ryder finally broke apart for air. She was blushing a little bit at the public display of affection, but her eyes were locked on his, and there was a look of complete clarity and elation that he wasn't sure he had _ever_ seen before. He lifted her up slightly off the ground and twirled her around, sure that his own grin was so wide that it was threatening to spread right off of his face.

Marley Rose was his best friend. Marley Rose was his prom date. And now, Marley Rose was his girlfriend.

Ryder had only been at prom for about 45 minutes, but it was already the best night of his life.


	16. Epilogue

**Author's Note: ****Everyone who has supported me throughout this story is amazing! Special thanks to people who reviewed, favorited, or subscribed to the last chapter: ****ChuckNutz**, **Addy, Prongsies**, **Lady Emily**, and **LLGreen**.

This is really the end, so I hope you guys enjoyed the story! I refuse to ever give up on Ryley – there's 2 more seasons now for it to happen!

**Disclaimer: **I still own nothing, Glee-related or otherwise. Songs in this chapter are 'Someday We'll Know,' originally by the New Radicals, but again this is the version that was used in 'A Walk to Remember,' sung by Mandy Moore and Jonathan Foreman, and 'We Are Golden' by MIKA. Additionally, I have no dance training, so details about choreography in this chapter will be minimal.

**Epilogue**

Before Sectionals, Marley had been jittery and stressed out. She had felt overwhelmed by the pressure, and she felt like the Glee club had been destined to lose because of her. Now, standing backstage, thinking of the duet she and Ryder would be singing in just a few minutes, she felt at total peace. They had been practicing for weeks, but the song had felt right since the first time Mr. Schuester had asked them to sing it in the choir room.

The pair were on opposite sides of the stage as they waited to start, but occasionally she would catch sight of her boyfriend, and he would flash her that grin that still made her feel like butterflies were flitting around in her stomach even though they had been together since prom almost a month ago.

Marley figured there was no use in standing up in her heels for too long, though; she would need to be in top form for dancing pretty soon, so she grabbed a seat on a bench and waited while the club before them performed. She couldn't remember what lame name their competition had this time; something along the lines of "Whose your Daddy," if she remembered correctly.

A small smile spread on Marley's face as she thought about singing with Ryder. They had perfected the choreography, and every time they performed together, it felt like she was falling for him all over again. There was this look he gave her – she couldn't quite describe it, but she knew it when she saw it, and she had a feeling it was reserved especially for her.

"You look a lot calmer than you were before our last big competition," Jake said, sliding onto the seat next to her. "Happier, too," he added. Marley blinked a little bit, coming out of her own daydreams, and Jake laughed at her.

"Well, as long as I don't pass out this time, it's not like it could get any worse," she admitted, and Jake shrugged.

"I don't know. Tina has told me horror stories about Finn and Rachel making out on stage during Nationals her sophomore year; if your duet ends like that, the rest of us might be wishing you had passed out instead," he teased, and Marley was happy to realize that it didn't feel awkward at all to have Jake tease her about Ryder. She remembered the gnawing feeling in her gut that she used to have when talking to Ryder about Jake, but there was none of that anxiety or guilt or unhappiness when she talked to her ex-boyfriend about her current one.

"I'm happy for you, you know," Jake said when he realized that Marley had remained silent for some time, and she responded with a sincere smile.

"I know. That's actually what I was just thinking," she admitted, and Jake nudged her playfully.

"Not cool to use your psychic powers on me. I thought you only reserved those for animals! Or at least that's what everyone who has ever watched Fondue for Two thinks," he joked, and Marley rolled her eyes.

"Oh, God, that was a disaster. I really wish Brittany would delete that video. It's the top result if you Google Marley Rose! It's even above The Muckraker's review of Grease," she said exasperatedly.

"Hey, well, if you guys decide to pull a Finchel onstage, I bet that could take over the top spot. Apparently their video has a lot of views – although Artie mentioned something about a T-Rex eating a Jew in the video, so who knows."

"Jake!" she groaned, and he just nudged her again.

"Anyway, I just wanted to say good luck. You guys are gonna kick butt out there, and then the rest of us are going to come join you and wipe the floor with our competition," he said, and although Marley hadn't felt nervous before, she felt even more at peace as she watched Jake return to Kitty's side.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the stage, Ryder was receiving a "pep talk" – if you could call it that – from Finn.

"And when Rachel and I sang duets, we liked to enter down the aisles," Finn rambled, continuing to recount his own glory days as if Ryder and Marley were going to suddenly change their choreography the day of the competition.

"You did that once," Tina yawned. She was sitting beside Ryder, occasionally correcting Finn when his details were a bit hazy.

"And you guys totally have the romantic tension thing going; that's what always made me and Rachel's duets so special…" the older boy continued.

"Every time you two had a duet we lost," Tina interjected, and Finn just dismissed her comment again.

"And dude, my first Regionals competition was when I told her that I loved her for the first time. If Marley's anything like Rachel, that would be, like, really special. Make winning even more memorable," he said, getting a goofy look on his face as he talked about his ex-fiance. Ryder didn't want to tell him that it was a little weird; fortunately, though, Tina was there to continue to do it for him.

"You still lost. And they're not you and Rachel, you know. Besides, shouldn't you be busy teaching Santana how to replace Marley right now anyway?" Ryder tried to contain a laugh; he really liked Finn, but Tina's comments were a little bit justified. Plus, Ryder was focused on winning the competition right now, not on telling Marley he loved her for the first time. Not that he _didn't_ want to tell Marley he loved her for the first time; he had been thinking about it a lot lately, but he was waiting for the right time. Even though she had been setting the pace for things and had said she was ready for this, he didn't want to overwhelm her. She and Jake had moved really fast emotionally, after all, and look how that had turned out.

"You guys are up," Finn said, clapping his hand on Ryder's shoulder as he used his other arm to gesture towards the now empty stage. The curtains were closed, and he could vaguely hear their team being introduced. Adrenaline coursed through his body; the announcer called out "And now, the McKinley High New Directions!", and the brief musical introduction to their song began.

Marley strode towards the middle of the stage in time with the beat. Her footsteps were gentle – slow and searching – and they fit the tone of the song.

"_90 miles outside Chicago, can't stop driving, I don't know why. So many questions, I need an answer. Two years later, he's still on my mind…_" They had practiced hundreds of times, and he had heard her sing countless other songs, but it still took Ryder's breath away when he heard Marley begin to sing.

Marley was meant to continue pacing in the background while in contrast, Ryder began his part from the back of the stage, where he watched Marley longingly.

"_Whatever happened to Amelia Earhart, who holds the stars up in the sky? Is true love just once in a lifetime…"_ Ryder answered, and by the time his part ended, Marley's wandering had lead her to where Ryder was standing.

"_Did the captain of the Titanic cry?"_ they sang together, standing an arm's length away. Ryder reached out towards Marley, but she lowered his hand and put her own hand on his heart instead as the sang the chorus.

"_Someday we'll know, if love can move a mountain, someday we'll know, why the sky is blue, someday we'll know, why I wasn't meant for you_…" The two alternated their parts as Marley, hand still on Ryder's heart, pushed him away from her. They strode in this manner at a diagonal until they were at the front right for the beginning of the second verse. The choreography that they had come up with set the scene up as a game of cat and mouse, where the two were alternately pulling closer to each other and then pushing away, denying their connection. It was simple, but Ryder felt like it fit them perfectly; they had made it through the hurdles only to come together at the end.

"_Someday you'll know, that I was the one for you…_" At the end of the song, Marley finally let Ryder take her hand, and he twirled her into him so that he could hold her from behind. She gazed up into his eyes, and okay, maybe Finn had had a point when he had talked about how he had just gotten caught up in his own feelings on stage during his disastrous Nationals kiss. He resisted the desire to lean in and make the same mistake with Marley, instead settling for squeezing her hand as the crowd applauded the duet.

It was an awesome feeling to have people standing up and clapping for them, but it was even more awesome to see how happy Marley looked. He knew it was her dream to be a singer on the radio, and it had to feel good for her to see the reaction that people were having to her voice already.

The clapping died down, and from backstage Mr. Schuester gave Ryder and Marley a thumbs up – partially for a job well done, but mostly to indicate it was time to begin the next song. There was no music to begin with, Ryder and Marley were supposed to start singing as the others joined them from backstage.

"_Teenage dreams in a teenage circus, running around like a clown on purpose, who gives a damn about the family you come from? No giving up when you're young and you want some_." The voices of the New Directions rang through the auditorium as the team skipped onto the stage, each standing beside their dance partner. Brittany, Sam, Kitty, and Jake, the ones who would be taking the dance solos, stood in the front middle of the stage as the others arranged themselves around and behind them.

"_Running around again, running for running,_" Brittany and Kitty sang as behind them Blaine twirled Tina to a position that was also front and center.

"_Waking up, in the midday sun, what's to live for? You could see what I've done. Staring at emotion in the light of day, I was running, from the things that you'd say_," the Asian diva belted, and Ryder was seriously impressed with the high notes that she was hitting. He knew that Tina complained a lot, and he knew it meant a lot to her that Finn and Mr. Schuester had finally given her a lead part in one of her final competitions..

"_We are not what you think we are, we are golden, we are golden. We are not what you think we are, we are golden, we are golden_," the group members chanted in preparation for the chorus.

Blaine took the lead on the second verse as Kitty, Brittany, Jake and Sam twirled and flipped in the front.

"_I was a boy, at an open door. Why you staring? Do you still think that you know? Looking for treasure in the things that you threw, like a magpie, I live for glitter not you…_"

Their enthusiasm hit its peak during the second chorus; what had been nervous energy at the beginning of the song had turned into a feeling of triumph. Even if they ended up losing this competition, they were _killing_ this song. They had every reason to feel proud of themselves as the song came to a close.

"_We are not what you think we are. We are not what you think we are. We are not what you think we are, we are golden, we are golden. Teenage dreams in a teenage circus, running around like a clown on purpose, who gives a damn about the family you come from? No giving up when you're young and you want some. We are not what you think we are, we are golden. We are golden."_

The applause was thunderous as the New Directions huddled together in the middle of the stage, hugging each other in congratulations. They barely noticed the other teams join them on stage to wait for the announcement of the winners; he was too busy reveling in how awesome it felt to actually complete their performances and feel good afterwards. It was so different from the terrified silence that had followed Marley's collapse at Sectionals. Then the waiting had been tense and awkward; today, it was filled with excited and nervous chatter.

A man in a bad toupee cleared his throat into a microphone, and Kitty, standing beside Marley and Ryder, whispered "Maybe he choked on a furball from his hair-don't." Ryder snickered as the man begin to speak.

"Congratulations to all of the teams involved in today's competition. The Midwest Regional Show-choir Board would now like to announce today's runner-ups. Our second place team is the the Hoosierdaddies!" The team to their left jumped up in excitement and raced forward to take their trophy, and somewhere a drumroll began as Ryder clutched Marley's hand in anticipation.

"And first place goes to, the McKinley High School New Directions!"

Ryder had experienced a lot of happy days since Marley had showed up as his prom date, but the day they won Regionals had to be on the top of the list. It wasn't just because of their win, though; the day only got better after that.

Later that evening, Ryder and Marley were cuddled up in his backyard hammock. His parents were downstairs watching the news, and Ryder had made dinner for Marley himself. He hadn't done anything fancy; he had just grilled hamburgers, cut up fruit for a fruit salad, and served her bubbling grape choice that he said was supposed to be the equivalent of celebratory champagne. Marley had giggled as he had exaggeratedly opened and poured the drinks for them. She had also giggled when his other side dish had turned out to be celery filled with peanut butter and topped with raisins.

"I haven't had Ants on a Log since I was in, like, third grade," Marley pointed out, but Ryder could tell that she was impressed that he remembered she had mentioned how much she wished it was still cool to make them now that they were older.

Ryder looked at his watch and reluctantly untangled himself from Marley. She pouted at him as he stood up.

"So I kind of have one more surprise for you today. I'll be right back," he said, running inside and grabbing a radio off of the kitchen counter.

"Ryder, what is this?" Marley looked at him inquisitively, but he could tell that she was trying to suppress a smile.

"Marley, you know that I think you're completely amazing, even if sometimes you don't believe in yourself. But today, you showed everyone in that audience at Regionals how amazing you are too… And this is a chance for even more people to realize it." He flipped the radio on to Lima's local radio network. It was a station that played a little bit of everything, but every Saturday night they reserved the 9 o'clock hour for local segments. Sure, there probably weren't a ton of people listening sitting at home listening to the radio at this particular hour, but Ryder still felt excited about his plan as he waited for the segment to begin.

"And in today's news, Lima's own McKinley High School won the Midwest Regional Showchoir Competition today for the third year in a row," an announcer declared over the airwaves. "I've had a request to play a recording of their winning songs tonight for all of you listeners out there to hear, starting with a duet by the amazingly talented Marley Rose and Ryder Lynn. Keep an eye on these two, Lima music lovers – I think you'll be hearing them again in the future." The announcers voice trailed off as the opening notes to 'Someday We'll Know' began for the second time today.

"Ryder, I…" Marley began, but closed her mouth, at a total loss for words as her own voice started playing on the radio.

"You've always said you wanted to be a singer on the radio," he said sheepishly. He went to run a hand through his hair, but found that his girlfriend had flung herself into his arms instead.

"You have no idea how incredible this is. I – you're amazing." It seemed like there was more she wanted to say. Ryder kissed the top of her head, then her forehead, and pointed out, "Listen to yourself, Marls. I'm pretty sure you're the amazing one here." He remembered Finn's words from earlier today – about how telling Marley he loved her for the first time should be this amazingly special moment. Right now, Marley's eyes were sparkling with adoration as she looked up at Ryder, and all his plans to wait and to take things slow so that they didn't make the same mistakes as Marley and Jake had made were shot to hell.

"Marley, I – " Ryder began, but it seemed that she beat him to it.

"I love you, Ryder," she declared, kissing him fiercely. "You are the most amazing, kind, funny, sweet, thoughtful person I have ever met. That I will _ever_ meet," she corrected herself. "And for all those things and more, I love you. I'm the luckiest girl in the world, to be with you." Ryder smiled broadly at her, holding her even closer than he had before.

"Yeah, somebody once told me that whenever I found somebody, she would be the luckiest girl in the world," Ryder said, winking as he reminded Marley of what she had told him back at the beginning of this all, when what he thought had been a huge mistake of a kiss had started to change everything. She nuzzled into him affectionately.

"And Marley? I love you, too."


End file.
